‘Why should life stop for any of us?’: Penny Lancaster on why sex and intimacy shouldn’t end with menopause

Penny Lancaster has joined a number of celebrities speaking out against the taboo of sex and intimacy in later life.

The star joined the Loose Women panel to discuss Prue Leith's recent revelation that at the age of 86, she uses testosterone gel to keep her libido alive - a doctor had previously told the former Bake Off judge that people of her age have normally "given up" on having sex.

Fellow panellists Christine Lampard, Nadia Sawalha and Gloria Hunniford also shared their thoughts on this important topic.

Penny rightly points out that just because women lose their hormones during menopause, there's no reason they should lose their sex lives.

"Why should life stop at all, for any of us?" she asks, adding that she also buys testosterone gel like Prue, "because I want to feel virile."

When asked if she wants to feel as virile as her husband, 81-year-old Rod Stewart, Penny shares, "No-one can beat him! There's 80 and there's 80 - there's not being able to get out of bed, and there's going touring around the world."

Penny continues that as an older woman, "You want to feel relevant, you want to feel powerful and strong," revealing that since taking testosterone herself, her "spark is back."

Gloria Hunniford also offered her opinion on sex in later life. Although she was happy for Prue, she did admit to feeling less enthusiastic about maintaining a sex life at her age.

"Well done Prue," she began, adding that although she'd had 30 "fabulous" years with her husband Stephen, who sadly passed away in 2024, sex wasn't something she was looking for at the moment.

"The thought of stripping my clothes off and jumping into bed with a new man, forget it," she says.

Gloria continues, "Prue has always been very open about her sex life when she wrote in magazines, and I think, well done Prue."

The ladies also discuss the ongoing stigma surrounding older women having sex, and why this needs to be addressed with children from a young age.

Nadia shares that when her daughter had her first sex education lesson at school, she was later "sat on the bed as white as a sheet."

She adds that her daughter was "really weird with us for quite a while afterwards," because "she was just so disgusted."

There was then conversation among the panellists that while it might be challenging for children to understand that their parents have sex, it's best to normalise the fact that adults can have sex until the end of their lives, and this is very natural.

Dr Miriam Stoppard has also spoken about sexuality in later life recently, saying, "Older people have the right to be sexual, have the right to take pleasure in their sexuality, have the right to be inventive and experimental."

Advocating for women to be supported to continue having sex for as long as they wish, Dr Stoppard says, "A woman's body has the ability to respond to sexual activity and sexual play, in exactly the same way as it did when she was younger."

She explains, "A woman's body is a miracle; it can respond sexually until the very end and the orgasms may be more intense."