Sarnia de la Maré FRSA Author, Musician, Artist

 In this chapter of Elderescence , Sarnia de la Maré explores how sensation changes after midlife — including increased sensitivity to texture, sound, temperature, and pace. The essay reframes ageing not as sensory decline, but as refinement, arguing that subtle pleasures become more meaningful as the body becomes a finer, more attentive instrument. Topics include ageing and the nervous system, sensory sensitivity, pleasure after midlife, embodied intelligence, and rethinking the ageing body in contemporary health culture. A full transcript of the essay is available for listeners who prefer to read alongside the audio. Chapter 2 The Sensory Body After Midlife There is a persistent myth about ageing that insists the senses dull with time. That touch becomes blunted, sound fades, pleasure weakens, and the body gradually withdraws from the world of sensation. Yet for many people, the opposite is true. What changes after midlife is not the ability to feel, but the nature of feel...

“This is part of my Elderescence work on ageing, pleasure, health, and embodied confidence in later life.” Pleasure in Later Years: Sensuality, Desire, and the Art of Elderescence Ch 1  Why Older Bodies Need Pleasure, Not Punishment For much of adult life, the body is treated as a project: something to be improved, corrected, disciplined into compliance. Effort is praised when it hurts, restraint when it denies, endurance when it overrides discomfort. Pleasure, by contrast, is treated as indulgent, suspicious, or earned only after sufficient suffering. This moral framing of the body is rarely questioned until age makes its consequences unavoidable. As we grow older, the body does not simply weaken; it becomes less willing to cooperate with force. What once responded to pressure now responds to tone. What once tolerated strain begins to ask for care. This is not failure but intelligence. The ageing body does not rebel — it negotiates. Punishment stops working because the nervous ...