Ageing and New Intimacies

Sarah Milton is Senior Research Fellow in the Sociology of Health and Illness at King’s College London.

'This sensational book analyses gendered ageing and embodiment through older women’s engagement with Salsa dancing. Milton skilfully interweaves generation, memory and new forms of intimacy in reframing normative ageing. This salsa ethnography reveals a world of safe sensuality through which older women navigate new intimacies through touch, flirting and friendship, alongside contempt often visited to ageing sexuality. A must-read, this book disrupts normative ideas of ageing and sexuality.'—Sweta Rajan-Rankin, Reader, University of Kent'Like all the best ethnographies, Sarah Milton’s beautifully written study combines a careful and detailed analysis with a compelling narrative. Attentive to the complexities of class, race, age and gender and their interactions, Milton provides her readers with a nuanced account of the lives of a group of women in middle age negotiating their social and intimate lives and reflecting on the conditions under which they make these negotiations.'—Steph Lawler, Reader Emerita, University of York‘In this lyrical account, Milton gently reveals the everyday ways that desire, love, romance and care are made and remade in midlife, helping us to glimpse the ways femininities are always on the move, lived and laughed about, even as they are painfully negotiated through the refractory lenses of class, race and gender. A subtle, profound book on the revolutions of ageing and intimacy.’ — Professor Lisa Baraitser, Birkbeck, University of London. ‘What a joyful book: a sensitively observed portrait of women in mid-life navigating new identities and relationships through the space of the Salsa class. This beautifully written book provides us with intimate, empirical perspectives on wider generational transitions around marriage, motherhood and work.’ — Professor Charlotte Faircloth, UCL Social Research Institute. ‘[in] this sensational book, Milton skilfully interweaves generation, memory and new forms of intimacy... revealing a world of ‘safe sensuality’ through which older women navigate new intimacies through touch, flirting and friendship, alongside contempt. A must-read, this book disrupts normative ideas of ageing and sexuality.’ — Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin, University of Kent.

• Introduction: revolutionary intimacies? 1: Salsa and safe sensuality2: Memories, generations and multiple femininities3: Compatibility and contempt4: Glamour, hierarchical femininities and friendshipConclusion: (re)negotiating ageing, gender and sexuality Epilogue: updating dancing and dating References Index