About Joan

Author and speaker Joan Price calls herself an "advocate for ageless sexuality." She has been called other things by the media: "senior sexpert," "the beautiful face of senior sex," “the woman leading a sex revolution for seniors,” and—her favorite—"wrinkly sex kitten." Visit Joan's zesty, award-winning blog about ageless sex.

How did Joan start writing and speaking about senior sex? For fifteen years, Joan was a widely published health and fitness writer. Then at 57, after decades of single life, she fell deeply in love with artist Robert Rice, who was then 64. Their love affair was profound, joyful, and extremely spicy. Their passion, in contrast to society's view of older people as sexless, led Joan at age 61 to write Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty (Seal Press, 2006) to celebrate the delights of older-life sexuality.

Robert and Joan married after five years together and had two more years together before Robert died of cancer in 2008. His last request to Joan was "Promise me you'll keep doing your work."

After Better Than I Ever Expected came out, hundreds of senior readers sent her questions and comments about the problems in their own sex lives. Joan realized that her next book had to be a self-help guide for both men and women dealing with the challenges of ageless sexuality. She started writing Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex (Seal Press, 2011) to address readers' problems. "You may have just saved my marriage," one reader wrote her. This book went on to win multiple awards.

The success of Naked at Our Age and the demand for more information about senior sexuality led Joan to write The Ultimate Guide to Sex After 50: How to Maintain – or Regain! – a Spicy, Satisfying Sex Life (Cleis Press, 2014), an upbeat, inclusive, and comprehensive guidebook for seniors of all genders and orientations and their health professionals.

It wasn’t until a decade after Robert’s death that Joan felt ready to write her newest book, Sex After Grief: Navigating Your Sexuality After Losing Your Beloved (Mango Publishing 2019). “I knew that a book about recapturing your sexuality after your partner dies was needed,” says Joan, “and once the stories from other grievers started pouring in, I had a mission to write it.”

In 2019, Joan teamed up with adult superstar, sex educator, and human rights activist jessica drake to make an instructional film about senior sex. “jessica drake’s Guide to Wicked Sex: Senior Sex Edition” is an educational, explicit film about how sex changes as we age and how we can remain sexually zesty lifelong. 

Joan Price travels nationally and internationally, speaking about ageless sex to wide and diverse audiences. Recent speaking engagements have included Australia, Montenegro, and the Netherlands. 

Formerly a high school English teacher, Joan is also a fitness professional who believes that exercise should be a treat, not a treatment. She has written several books about health and fitness, including The Anytime, Anywhere Exercise Book: 300+ Quick and Easy Exercises You Can Do Whenever You Want.

Joan a few months after 1979 accident

Joan wasn't a dedicated exerciser until her thirties, when she discovered aerobic dance. She credits her new-found fitness habit for saving her life after a near-fatal automobile crash in 1979. (Read her story here.) "The doctors said they didn't know how I lived," she says. "I knew that my daily exercise had strengthened my heart enough to go on automatic pilot while I waited for medical help."

Once her many injuries healed enough to get back into the aerobics room, she decided to train as a group exercise instructor to "share the joy of movement." Joan taught aerobic dance and worked with personal clients for many years. Now she teaches popular contemporary line dancing classes -- which she calls "the most fun you can have with both feet on the floor" -- in Sebastopol and Santa Rosa, California.

For media interviews or inquiries, please email Joan.