In Search of Hidden Sexuality. Old Age and Sexuality in the Light of Humorous Narration

Abstract

1 Sinikka Vakimo University of Eastern Finland, Joensuuis article deals with the perceptions of the elderly from the agrarian culture of early-to-mid-20 th -century Finland. It focusses especially on how the sexuality and corporeality of old women are de ned in humorous oral narration. e research materials include archival anecdotes about old age and sexuality.e research draws upon theoretical discussions presented in feminist cultural gerontology and folklore studies. e gure of the old woman emerges here as a strikingly complex sexual agent, a gure whose body and sexuality are visible in anecdotes and not hidden.Keywords: cultural conceptions, age and sexuality, body, humour, folklore IntroductionEver since its inception as a eld of research, cultural gerontology has preoccupied itself with the cultural de nitions and varying a itudes and perceptions of old age. e analysis of historical materials, including, for example, European art and literary works from antiquity, have enabled researchers to perceive certain mental models of old age common in Western culture. Although researchers acknowledge the diversity and context-bound nature of de nitions of old age, they still concur that the prevailing cultural de nitions have generally been, and continue to be, negative. Old age, especially female old age, is invariably associated with physical and mental decline as well as loss of social, economic and sexual power (Beauvoir 1986: 99-311; Covey 1991: 161-174; Falkner and Luce 1992: 4-5; Soden 2012: 84-85; see Minois 1989). In spite of the tremendous societal and cultural changes that have occurred, many of these perceptions continue to inform present-day images of old age circulating in the media and popular culture (see Featherstone and Wernick 1995; Dolan and Tincknell 2012; Swinnen and Stotesbury 2012;Ylänne 2012).e present article seeks to shed some light on the area of popular thought and inhering notions of gendered old age in recent history. My investigation concentrates on cultural models of thinking which are situated in early-to-mid-20 th -century Finland, when face-toface communication still gured more prominently in the production and circulation of ideas and information than in the media-centred society of today. erefore the empirical investigation concentrates on orally-transmi ed folk narratives. Oral folk narratives are rmly bound to their narrative communities and to the cultural models for collective thinking and experiencing (Siikala 1989: 189-190). at industrialisation, urbanisation and subsequent structural changes in livelihoods took place in Finnish society relatively late (Virrankoski 2012) is evident in the cultural models of thinking represented in folk narration; their origins 1 I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the expert referees of my article. eir valuable comments encouraged me to express my ideas with more clarity and thus improve the quality of the article as a whole.