For a long time, later-life sexuality was often suppressed, trivialised, or condemned, with older adults portrayed – both in public and clinical arenas – as naturally experiencing declining sexual desire and functioning. In more recent decades, however, there has been a marked shift in cultural and scholarly discourse, positioning sexuality as a salient component of healthy ageing and overall lifelong well-being. This evolution has been propelled by the confluence of two noteworthy developments: the commercial release of Viagra in 1998, subsequently followed by other ‘sexuopharmaceuticals’, and the emergence of a widespread rhetoric advocating active and healthy ageing.

Pharmaceutical interventions – including erectile medications such as Viagra and a range of hormone treatments – become crucial lenses through which we can re-examine not only sexual function in older adults, but also the broader politics of health, age and commercial profit. Where once older adults’ sexual concerns were minimised or ignored by healthcare professionals, we now see an explosion of ‘therapeutic’ discourses and treatments that promise indefinite vitality. ‘Sexual enhancement’ products have helped construct new expectations of ongoing sexual performance well into advanced ages, reversing older stereotypes of seniors as asexual or uninterested in intimacy.

While there is a welcome shift in public perceptions – ageing need not denote the end of sexual enjoyment – it is important to point to the ambivalent legacy of what might be termed the ‘Viagra era’. In particular, there is a caution that a narrow, heteronormative and youth-focused paradigm is being extended: one that privileges penetrative intercourse as the hallmark of successful ageing, often at the expense of more diverse or adaptive expressions of bodily pleasure.