Foreword

I am a retired social gerontologist -research is now my (mostly unfunded) hobby.I study social issues of later life, in general, and LGBT ageing especially, the latter inherently about sexuality yet rarely focusing on sexuality.Consistent with this, my body of research has broadly considered the lives of those whose identities are tied to their same-sex sexual attractions and feelings (and the many consequences of these non-heterosexual identities and experiences); rarely have I studied sexual behaviours.I believe that I am not unique in this more exclusive approach, which renders this book both fascinating to me and also a little humbling in bringing to the foreground that area which has eluded my scrutiny all these years; I suspect many others may respond similarly, which only amplifies the need for and reach of this compilation.This volume is edited by three colleagues with complex, broad fields of vision -leaders in this area and deep, integrative thinkers.They have a keen sense of both the area and the literature and a clever, sophisticated way with words.I am friends with one of the editors and certainly aware of many of the prolific writings of all three.They form a multidisciplinary, international team, appropriate for the interdisciplinary focus of this volume.And, they have invited an international group of respected and literate authors whose backgrounds include arts and activism, counselling, gender studies, law, many fields of psychology, public health, social work, sociology and creative writing.Across these authors, perspectives and chapters, this volume offers a sensitive accounting of sexual activity and exploration, viewing sex and intimacy as more than genitocentric penetration (I am already learning the terminology!) and through a lens of ageing into disability, as opposed to ageing with a disability.The authors aim 'to examine the various ways in which later life sexuality as an older disabled subject is conceived, asserted, struggled for, produced and accomplished, interpersonally, institutionally, economically, politically, culturally and socially'.Such an ecologically nested approach naturally brings together complex theories and positions, such as critical gerontology (itself a multilevel, multidisciplinary approach analytically scrutinising the social structures and assumptions of ageing [e.g., Wellin, 2018] and what Iacub refers to as 'post-gerontology'), crip theory (challenging ableist assumptions and restrictive bodily experiences [e.g.,