Sexuality and Aging: Deconstructing Power, Bodily Meaning, and the Fiction of Incompatibility

How do different discourses construct the seemingly incompatible relationship between sexuality and aging?

In what ways do these discourses establish and reinforce this incompatibility, subtly sustaining the illusion of an "essentialized" narrative of the heterosexual sexual script?

How does this dynamic serve to naturalize a specific framework of sexuality (the “universal” order), marginalizing other possibilities while privileging certain narratives of sexual desire and capability?

Critical Inquiry into the mechanism of social construction

The relationship between sexuality and aging is often framed as incompatible through various discourses, revealing how societal constructions shape perceptions of these concepts. These constructions, rooted in the broader concept of “social construction,” involve attaching culturally specific meanings to naturally occurring phenomena. Social construction is a highly debated topic in philosophy, particularly concerning its implications for free will versus cultural determinism—or what some might term cultural destiny. Importantly, this process is not neutral; the language and discourses through which these meanings are constructed actively shape and articulate reality rather than merely reflecting it.

This perspective aligns with structuralist Ferdinand de Saussure’s argument that language is not a mere labeling tool for pre-existing meanings. Instead, meaning emerges through signification—the relationship between the “signifier” (word) and the “signified” (concept)—in a system that is arbitrary and relational. This process often relies on binary oppositions, such as “normal” versus “deviant,” which serve to construct stable and definite meanings. However, these meanings are not purely descriptive but carry ideological weight, often solidifying into narratives of “essentialism” that present themselves as universal truths, unaffected by time and context.

Post-structuralists challenge these fixed meanings, emphasizing that while meaning is indeed relational and constructed, it is also contingent upon broader social, religious, political, and economic contexts. From this perspective, binary oppositions are not stable but are instead fluid, with each term deriving meaning from and depending on its “other.” For instance, the concept of “normal” cannot exist without the “deviant” to define it, creating a relational network rather than an inherent distinction. These oppositions often function to uphold power structures, generalizing differences into simplified categories that privilege certain groups while marginalizing others.

This dynamic is evident in how discourses surrounding sexuality and aging operate. By constructing “normal” and “deviant” categories through social, medical, economic, and political frameworks, society naturalizes these oppositions, masking their contingent and constructed nature. This process creates an illusion of stability and essentialism, portraying these narratives as biological truths rather than socially mediated fictions. For example, age and sexuality are often framed through normative scripts that exclude the diversity of lived experiences, privileging certain identities while rendering others invisible.

What emerges from this analysis is the internal logic of social construction as a means of reaffirming dominant ideologies and power structures. By associating “normalcy” with perceived authority—another social construction—discourses reinforce their own centrality and legitimacy. This raises a critical question: Is there any truly biological basis for such preeminence, or is it a fiction constructed upon other fiction? The conflation of differences into rigid categories serves to exclude alternative possibilities, reinforcing insider/outsider distinctions and perpetuating systems of privilege and marginalization.

This understanding not only critiques the essentialist narratives that dominate discussions of sexuality and aging but also calls for a recognition of their constructed and contingent nature, opening the door for more inclusive and fluid frameworks.

Socially constructed incompatibility

This brings us back to the question of how such social construction orienting the power serves to make such a narrative of incompatibility. This involves the central belief for “old age” as the failure to be youthful and valuable and sex as the indication of youthfulness. Aging, an inevitable process, is inherent and common in everyone throughout our courses of lives. But the language of aging and old age, as mentioned above, does not simply reflect such a bodily process. Instead, the signifier is signified in multiple ways through discursive formation (where power joins). By portraying aging, especially old age, with an “inherent” connection with illness, increased dependency, and sexless body image, the power can turn such bodily changes into pathologizing, meaning cherishing health, independence, and sexy body image (thus the representation of youth) over those with old age. This process involving medical, social, and psychological discourses reinforces such biased belief and knowledge into our social structure, leading to systemic oppressions (among 1. social oppressions, e.g., the asexual senior stereotype, 2. systemic oppressions in legitimizing such constructed valuation of youth over oldness), also having negative implications for those elder folks. These oppressions, taking both interpersonal and macro-level scopes in either cover or overt forms, if they exist for a long term, would lead to self-doubt and internalized oppressions, thus making such social construction (ageism) so stable and “natural.” This is one flip of the coin. The other flip of the coin emphasizes the constructed meaning of sexuality and how such is incompatible with aging. Sexuality, again, is not neutral. Instead of being portrayed with multiplicity or fluidity, sexuality becomes a target area being severely censored and controlled by serological, religious, social, and medical discourses. Thus, the content is allowed to turn into the very reality since the language can mediate and reshape the “truth,” often reflecting the beliefs and ideologies of dominant and privileged groups of people in their terms to reinforce the stability of their power. There are several ways for the power to control the discourse of sexuality. Under Christian religious impact, sex should be confined to heterosexual intercourse for reproduction. This idea contradicts older people who have sex since their sexual projects are hardly for reproduction. This is further justified by sexologists (people with authority, the “expert” in certain scientific discourse ) who turn other sexual activities into perversion, gradually shifting from blaming the act to blaming the people, since sex, as they conceive, is an inherent feature of humans, not just a mere action. With that in mind, sex is an indication of a human’s maturity state and mental health. Since aging inevitably leads to a decline in cognitive, mental, and physical functioning, having sex is again denied for the unqualified elder. Also, sexuality, considered as one’s internal feature, is externalized through one’s appearance and looking in judging whether those convey the signal of internal sexuality or not. This not only involves the relationship between aging and sexuality but also reflects the androcentric ground of such narrative, which makes women sexual objects subjected to surveillance of sexual desire, whereas men could be dismissed by their wealth and power when getting older.

The limitations of the biomedical framing of aging and disability arise from the discursive practices embedded within medical discourse. Medical discourse, as a system of knowledge formation, is not ideologically neutral; it establishes what can be said (e.g., defining health, illness, and pathologization) and determines who is qualified to speak (e.g., medical experts, sexologists). These roles not only shape how knowledge is produced but also regulate the boundaries of what is considered legitimate understanding. Through these interactions, medical discourse constructs and reinforces the knowledge we possess about aging and disability. This process involves the internalization of ideology, where socially and culturally influenced assumptions about health and normalcy become naturalized. Consequently, aging and disability are often framed in terms of decline or deficiency, reflecting the limitations of a purely biomedical perspective that fails to account for the broader social, cultural, and relational dimensions of these experiences, leading to a sense of an essentialized account of problem in relation with the embodiment.

The socially constructed meanings surrounding aging—manifesting as ageism—and sexuality—centered on heterosexual intercourse—produce a fictionalized incompatibility between the two. This reflects power dynamics where the body becomes the precise site of production and control. Within this framework, the subject is brought into being through a power-laden system of knowledge, which not only shapes but also continually regulates and disciplines the individual. The socially constructed meaning around aging, thus ageism, and sexuality, thus heterosexual intercourse, making the stable fiction of incompatibility between two, reflecting the power dynamics.