Dating expert helps seniors stoke fire

Sure, you can learn about estate planning and get health and medical advice and hear about potential destinations for your next vacation at Saturday's Las Vegas Review-Journal Successful Aging Expo at the Cashman Center.

But admit it. The session you really want to catch is Carol Ann Weber's presentation about dating after 60.

It's OK. Weber's session last year — about sex after 60 — was, it turns out, pretty popular, too.

The free expo runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p. m. Saturday at the Cashman Center, 850 Las Vegas Blvd. North. It will include more than 120 exhibitors offering services and products for people ages 50 and older, as well as 30- to 45-minute seminars throughout the day on such topics as healthy living, pain management, financial planning, Medicare and travel.

Live entertainment is scheduled to include performances by the Australian Bee Gees, Neil Diamond impersonator Rob Garrett and Elvis impersonator Steve Connolly, and guests also will be able to meet R-J columnists and win prizes.

For more information, visit www.successfulaginglv.com or call 702-380-4554.

Weber's program is scheduled for 11 a.m. Weber — who describes herself as "an undercover senior: I only whip out my AARP card when I want to get a discount" — says she has presented workshops throughout the valley over the past several years about senior-related topics.

It should be no surprise that sex and dating always are popular topics, because, Weber says, "the idea that once you hit 60 you don't have a (sex) life anymore is absolutely absurd.

"As my father used to say, there may be snow on the roof, but there's still fire in the furnace."

"People just don't give credit to the sexual desire of people after 60," Weber says. "And it's there, but, a lot of times, they get talked out of it. It gets ignored. I mean, it's just not anything that's encouraged or even talked about. So I decided to talk about it."

Today's seniors are yesterday's baby boomers, and boomers "did break stereotypes," Weber notes, possessing, for nearly all of their lives, "a different way of looking at life and defining life."

Boomers also throughout their lives have "had more knowledge about staying healthy," says Weber, who stresses to those 60 and older that good health goes hand in hand with a vibrant sex life.

"I always end up getting into, 'Take better care of yourself,' because when you're hurting, it kind of kills sexual desire," Weber says. "If you're consumed with that — if you're very sick or in such pain or whatever — it kind of takes away from thinking about having sex.

"So, I would encourage them and say, 'If you want to spice up your sex life, get out there and exercise. Eat better. Get yourself in better shape. Do fun things to perk up your mind.' You have to have energy to have some pizzazz, to have a spicy sex life."

Weber says that, at the last Successful Aging Expo, viewers had so many questions about sex that "I couldn't get them to leave."

The questions weren't about anything "weird or kinky," she says. "They just wanted to have a healthy, balanced life."

People at all stages of their lives crave intimacy and friendship and acceptance, Weber says, and those returning to dating after a later-in-life divorce or the death of a spouse can find the going "very tough."

For them, the most important thing is to have "a positive attitude," Weber says.

Weber would suggest that men "understand that you're mature people now. And don't go straight to sex. Get to know the person. Honor them. Respect them.

"As women mature, we really do want to have the whole thing. We want to have a friend, a companion and a great sex partner. But if you go straight to sex, you're turning most of us off."

Of course, Weber plans to ask women during the program what they think. Creating a dialogue among audience members is, she says with a laugh, "where it gets fun."

— Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280 or follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.