Superannuation fund advises on taboo topic
Prefer not to read about taboo topics? Then please shut this email down and boil some water, because back when I worked in superannuation, my super fund advised on a very taboo topic. So taboo, you won’t believe it.
What happened was, my fund gave our gave our customers who attended a retirement planning seminar a free book called, The Rest of Your Life—a 307-page information dump on everything ‘retirement,’ giving the good oil on topics ranging from retirement villages and the age pension, to taking dancing lessons and yes, the taboo topic 'at hand.’
Which is?
Masturbation.
That's right. The book even advised on doing a Meg Ryan.
I warned you, didn’t I?!
And so, for the purpose of proving to the court this story is true, and for your retirement planning *pleasure*, here’s an excerpt from page 187, which reads:
I strongly recommend practicing solo sex, otherwise called masturbation, with or without the use of safe sex toys, as a means to keeping sexual functioning and sexual confidence alive. Being sexually confident makes a start into a new relationship easier, and helps maintaining the spark in long-term partnerships.
And I admit, my retirement tips can be left field. But that’s out there and beyond even by my standards.
But funnily enough, having puzzled my puzzler about my super fund’s decision to share this taboo topic, I now applaud it for two reasons.
First, I applaud anything that breaks convention that retirement is the time you should sit quietly in the Exit Lounge of Life.
And second, I applaud anything that encourages you to bring more of yourself to retirement, not less. For instance, the excerpt above is from the chapter in the book titled ‘Celebrating vitality, sex, and sexuality and the second half of your life’ (which precedes the chapter titled ‘Surviving separation and divorce’). And if expressing intimacy has always been part of who you are, bring it on in retirement, I say. And like everything else, bring it on without fear, shame or indifference.
And guess what? No topic is too taboo, either, in my Retirement Coaching Asylum: