2. Ask for what you want, point blank.

In some situations, the issue may not be physical or logistical. It’s that the sex you’re having just…isn’t that great.

“If you’re in a relationship or marriage where sex is not exciting, of course you’re not going to want to do it,” Tammy Nelson, PhD, a 63-year-old AASECT-certified sex therapist, who also speaks from personal experience, tells SELF. “It’s like, if the party isn’t fun, why would you go?”

However, one of the many upsides of getting older is acquiring a kind of bluntness your younger self probably shied away from. “At a certain point, you just don’t give a crap,” one 64-year-old woman, speaking anonymously, tells SELF. When you realize life’s too short, you stop worrying so much about how your body looks in certain lighting, how you sound while climaxing, and whether your kinks are “too much.”

“I was once so ashamed to bring up BDSM—being spanked, choked. You don’t want to scare someone off or be judged,” she says. But after years of what she calls “vanilla sex,” she discovered a game-changing truth: speaking up is worth it. “I had my first real orgasm—that I didn’t have to fake—at 61.”

3. Find what drives you wild.

Achieving a mind-blowing climax doesn’t require a partner. For the women SELF spoke with, their 50s and 60s marked a turning point in figuring out what made them squirm—where they enjoyed being touched, what kind of stimulation worked, which fantasies excited them—all thanks to masturbation.

“I feel freer now to explore my body,” Shay Martin, 63, who owns Vibratex (the exclusive distributor of the Magic Wand sex toy brand), tells SELF. “When I was younger, I would use my hands manually, but there are so many tools out there [vibrators, anal toys, penis rings, nipple clamps] to help with achieving an orgasm on your own that’s much more intense and lasts longer.”