"I'm 71 years old, I've had dozens of girlfriends, and older people are very direct in their relationships because there's not much time left."
Even as we age, people's need for sex and love does not disappear.
Image from Tencent Video
In Beijing's Changpuhe Park, there are some middle-aged and elderly people gathered all year round, they talked loudly, sang and chatted, and the dialogue lasted from early morning to night. What attracts them to gather here is not to pass the time, but to "go on a blind date", to find a lover who is willing to accompany them for the rest of their lives.
Image from the Internet
In the eyes of the world, the fierce "love" and "love" seem to be completely isolated from the elderly group, and their sexual needs and love needs are blurred to invisible, but after reading the following articles, you will find that perhaps we have never really understood the inner desires of the elderly group.
According to data released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 13,000 cases of ELDERly male AIDS patients in mainland China in 2016, 3.6 times that of 2010.
Contrary to what people think, the lives of the elderly are not always calm and dull, and their spiritual world is filled with more naked desires, more repressed loneliness, and more realistic considerations... The corner of the small Changpu River Park is always staged with a human drama intertwined with desire and calculation, and their laughter and anger tear open the corner of the old love lake.
Be brave enough to show love and kiss on the street
The love of the elderly
One episode of the talk show "Talking to Strangers" focuses on the elderly in Changpu River Park, and the theme is called: The Love of the Elderly.
Uncle Hu, a 62-year-old retired worker from Beijing, whose wife died a few years ago, came to Changpuhe Park 2 years ago in hopes of finding someone.
Uncle Hu lives very really, he is very frank about his desires, he longs for hot feelings, but also longs for sex: "The craziest thing I have ever done when I am in love is four times a day. ”
After the death of his wife, Uncle Hu had several partners, and in the process of love, he also experienced sincere love, and even said that this was a madness that he had never had when he was young.
When the host asked, "What's the most romantic thing you've ever done?" Uncle Hu replied unabashedly, "It's in the Dashilar Cinema, we're there." ”
But does having desire necessarily mean "disrespectful to the old" and "not a good person"? Human nature is complex, inner emotions and desires are always cross-parallel, born to ask for something, the loneliness and desire of the elderly also need to be seen and worthy of respect.
Just like this seemingly unrestrained Uncle Hu, he actually lived most of his life in a sexless marriage.
Uncle Hu's wife has been in poor health and has undergone several major surgeries, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and a lot of syndromes. In the decades of marriage, many times the two couples slept in separate rooms and rarely had sex.
The host asked him, "Haven't you thought about leaving her?" Uncle Hu shook his head: "Can you bear it?" ”
Although they and their wives do not have vigorous love memories, in the long years of life, they have still become the most inseparable part of each other's lives. The wedding photos taken by the two people, the old man has been reluctant to take them off, and hang them in the living room. His wife's park card, which he kept in his wallet, because it contained the only remaining photographs she had left.
Until the last moment of his wife's life, he still tried his best to guard her side. Because she did not trust the nurse, she went to the hospital every day to take care of her. Until his wife, who was seriously ill, could no longer speak, Uncle Hu comforted her and said, "Don't be afraid, whoever bullied you told me." I'll go to you in a few years, and I don't think I'll live much longer. ”
When the reporter came to Uncle Hu's house, he found that it was chaotic, full of waste plastic bottles, dirty clothes were also thrown everywhere, uncle Hu was in such an environment, staying at home alone and listening to the sound of the TV all night.
For Uncle Hu, the love for his late wife is true, the life of no one and lonely in his old age is true, and the desire that cannot be discharged in his heart is even more true, before love and love, there is no difference between young and old.
Inside and outside ChangpuHe Park, there are many hidden "love for the elderly" like Uncle Hu.
The fear of death, the pursuit of desire, and the resistance to loneliness magnifie the emptiness in the old man's heart. In contrast, young people are always unconsciously vague or even ignore the needs of their parents and elders. Avoiding mentioning and facing up to such problems because of the embarrassment and shame in their hearts makes the elderly feel that they are not understood and respected.
What we need to know is that above the age of loss, they are first and foremost human beings.
Lack of sexual needs, love
Elderly AIDS patients
A few weeks ago, the 91-year-old Mrs. Cui felt unwell, coughing, high fever, always not getting better, so Mrs. Cui's 62-year-old son, Grandpa Yu, took his mother to the clinic to prescribe anti-fever medicine, but after taking it for a few days, it did not work.
So Grandpa Yu took his mother to the hospital for examination, and the doctor suggested that he take the old man to the blood test to check for syphilis and AIDS.
Grandpa Yu was surprised: "How can it be, my father has been dead for more than 20 years, and my mother usually lives alone." I don't know about that, but it's absolutely impossible! ”
Although the family did not want to believe it, the 91-year-old Mrs. Cui was still diagnosed with AIDS. It turned out that after the death of her husband, Mrs. Cui had always lived alone, and she would take in some homeless people, both as companions and some "accommodation fees".
The old woman recalled that over the years, two or three men in their 60s had asked to share a bed with him and have sex, and eventually contracted AIDS.
When it comes to sexual needs, society always excludes the elderly, and most people tacitly believe that this behavior does not exist in the elderly group.
One once did an online survey, the question is do your parents still have sex? A total of 1,000 valid questionnaires were received, of which 85 per cent of young people believed that their parents had no sex.
But the reality is that the need to be hidden by society does not mean it does not exist.
According to the Disease Control Bureau of the National Health Commission, between January and October 2019, a total of 230 million people were tested nationwide, and the new report found 131,000 cases of HIV infection. Han Mengjie, director of the Center for STD AND AIDS Prevention and Control of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that the newly reported increase in the number of elderly PEOPLE living with HIV is very obvious.
According to statistics from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNIAIDS), there were about 35.3 million AIDS patients worldwide in 2014, of which 4.2 million were elderly. At the beginning of 2017, the State Council included the elderly in the 13th Five-Year Plan for the Prevention and Control of AIDS in China for the first time.
Surveys show that sex remains the main mode of transmission of AIDS in old age. "Some older people have risky behaviors that are susceptible to HIV infection and are not taking safety measures. It is not clear about the risk of AIDS, or it is thought that if you are older, prevention will not affect it. So it is more neglected in this regard. ”
For elderly patients, AIDS brings not only a decaying body, but also pervasive discrimination and loneliness.
Uncle Liu, a 61-year-old from Guilin, Guangxi Province, died more than 10 years ago and has been single ever since. In 2016, Uncle Liu was working as a laborer on the construction site, and one day he drank wine, and with the help of wine, he received a cheap special service next to the construction site. "I also regret it, and I know that this is not right, but the middle-aged woman next to the construction site only has 40 yuan at a time."
What Uncle Liu never expected was that a special service made AIDS and him forever tied together.
"Now as soon as I go out, I see anyone in the village and feel that he is muttering that I have AIDS, that I am not a good person, and that I dare not go out."
In the traditional view, people instinctively reject such diseases and label AIDS as "debauched" and "immodest". Not only did Uncle Liu himself feel a strong sense of shame, but even his own children no longer let their grandchildren come close after learning of their father's illness.
"I really miss my granddaughter, but my son won't let me see it, for fear of infection." You can only look at the school gate and look at it from a distance. ”
In our lives, there are many elderly people like Uncle Liu who are infected with AIDS due to low-cost prostitution. People's desire for sex and love does not shrink with the decline of physical functions. And when the sexual needs of the elderly become a part of social life that has to be covered up, ignored and rejected by the public, it has become the most difficult hidden pain in their hearts.
Die alone and can't love
Neglected emotional needs
According to the sixth national census, widows and elderly people in the mainland account for about 27% of the elderly population, about 47.48 million. Among them, 80% of widowed elderly people have the desire to remarry, but less than 10% of them can eventually enter marriage.
The old people's pursuit of love and companionship stems in part from the fear of loneliness and death.
With the advent of an aging society, the number of elderly people living alone continues to increase, because of the lack of family care and contact with the outside world, "lonely death" is inevitably happening in every corner of the world.
According to a 2019 survey by the Cabinet Office of Japan, 1 in 3 people over the age of 60 in Japan "died alone.".
Image from the Lonely Death documentary
Ito, 91, is an elderly man who lives alone and has lived in the government-built apartment for more than 60 years.
Day after day, living a life of incomparable regularity and monotony.
The only thing that was special was that Ito had a strange little habit. Every night at 6 p.m., she would pull up the paper screen on the window, and the next morning after being woken up by an alarm clock at 5:40 a.m., she would pull the screen open again.
This is Ito's "code word" to his neighbors: "If it keeps closing, it means I'm dead." ”
In China, such "lonely deaths" also occur from time to time. In December 2017, in a community in Nanjing, an 81-year-old man was found more than two months after his death.
Unaccompanied, unaccompanied; ignored by their families, forgotten by society, for these old people who are often shrouded in loneliness, they are alive, like a kind of disappearance. Under such fear and anxiety, someone walks hand in hand and becomes precious.
But the traditional social concept of "twilight love" is not tolerant enough. People deny the emotional needs of the elderly, believing that the elderly no longer desire love, and many elderly people's love affairs are defined by social opinion as "disrespectful for the old". In addition, some children do not respect the emotional choices of their parents and interfere with the remarriage.
Beijing Satellite TV has a blind date program called "Choice", and the participants in the program are single middle-aged and elderly people in their fifties and sixties, and for them, it is not easy for them to get off the list than young people.
They examine not only a stable material life, a healthy physical condition, but also a deep spiritual need to live a sincere life, to close the eyes, but also to be able to move the heart.
Even if these meet the requirements, it does not mean that they can come together smoothly, because before love, they are most worried about the opinions of their children.
Under the traditional concept of hostage, if the children agree, it is equivalent to giving them the freedom to choose love, if the children oppose, many old people will choose to give up, just to make the children happy.
The compromise of the elderly often means the abandonment of self-needs, and modern medicine says that if the emotional needs of the elderly are not effectively met, it is easy to cause some psychological problems, resulting in negative emotions such as loneliness, anxiety, depression, etc., thus affecting physical health.
Life, old age, illness and death are the only way for everyone, and the emotional difficulties faced by these elderly people are also the social reality that each of us cannot escape.
American supermodel Carmen Dell'Orefice was asked in an interview with a magazine at the age of 83 if she still had sex, and she calmly said: "Of course, there have always been boyfriends. ”
A neighborhood show in Japan once interviewed an old grandmother, who said that applauding for love does not need to be age-sensitive. At the age of 90, I will also have to fall in love, date boyfriends, and enjoy sex, which is not something to be ashamed of.
In Changpu River Park, the 55-year-old divorced uncle has been dating for more than 5 years, although the process is difficult and often ends without illness, but he is not discouraged, he said: "Even if it is just a glimmer of light, even if I look at that light, I want to get it." Loneliness is not terrible, it is terrible to lose enthusiasm for the world and for love. The day I grow old, I hope there will still be a spark in my heart and full of courage. ”
For many people, even if their lives are old, their enthusiasm for the world is still undiminished, and they only hope that society can give them a little more tolerance.
Author: Cheryl, elite said post-90s author, British returnee, write with heart.
Elites are said to be a gathering place for global elites and international students. Daily cutting-edge information at home and abroad is released, with new learning about studying abroad, elite stories and American street visits, showing you the real overseas life in an all-round way. Welcome to ID: elitestalk.
Reference：
Xinhua News Agency: China Center for Disease Control and Prevention: The number of hive infected people in the elderly has increased significantly
Global Network: AIDS in the elderly: physiological needs that have nowhere to be placed!
Dr.X: 4.2 million elderly people contract AIDS: Ignorance of disease is more terrifying than death
Bundi Banchang: After indulging in this elderly blind date show, "Do Not Disturb" is not fragrant
Chaoyang Park East Seven Doors: 90-year-old grandmother: applaud for love, regardless of age
Jinhua News Network: A 91-year-old woman infected with AIDS and has had relationships with a number of scavengers