What we need now is a Viagra-like ad where the silver haired couple give each other the knowing grin, and then before they jump into the hot tub or wander down the beach, there’s a companion ad for Trojans. The message being, we don’t want to rain on your parade but don’t forget the raincoat. You know, the love glove. Best known to an older generation as rubbers.

Here’s a part of AIDS awareness that doesn’t get much focus when people advocate for safe sex. Protection is not just a necessity for the young and the restless. The old and the lusty are also vulnerable. In fact, one of the fastest growing HIV populations is seniors.

As a culture we’ve been slow to accept that seniors have sex. Probably many still prefer to think that older people only  get action at the bingo table. But consider the happy faces on Judi Dench and Bill Nighy in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer in the Last Station.  Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones in Hope Springs.

There’s no age limit on sex, depending on interest and the mechanics. And that is good news. But, as with all things to do with romance, there can be troubling aspects.   As the number of single people aged 55 to 64 in the U.S. has increased, the rate of HIV infection in this group has also climbed.

People are living longer, having sex longer and more are getting sick from HIV.

Ginger Washburn is a Sonoma County AIDS activist who talks up safe sex to all ages, from high schools to retirement communities. Ginger drafted me and other friends to pass out condoms at our town square for an HIV campaign. For World AIDS Day Ginger organized a condom fashion show in which all the clothes were constructed from the familiar tube design.

Ginger said what puts seniors at risk is they think they’re immune. They don’t worry about getting pregnant anymore so why use birth control at their advanced age. Some are under the mistaken impression that if they don’t use drugs or aren’t gay they can’t be infected.

For a lot of people who have been away from the dating game for a long time, HIV is a new concern. Maybe they worried about herpes the last time they were out looking for love, but nothing that can make them as sick as HIV or kill them like AIDS.

Also, they come from a time when people didn’t talk a whole lot about sex before having it. But today, before they proceed with a new lover they need to be asking who’s been tested for HIV and thinking of using a condom, which can be a deflating prospect, with or without Viagra.

But it’s a necessary consideration says Ginger because an older man or woman can be infected with HIV and not know it. She’s known people whose depression, chronic fatigue, fevers, even dementia were misdiagnosed and then turned out to be HIV, which, if discovered in time, can be treated with medication.

The CDC says that of the more than 1.1 million people in the United States estimated to be living with HIV, approximately 20 percent are unaware they are infected.

That’s why the federal government body would like to see HIV testing become routine for all adolescents and adults which is sure to set off a howl by those who don’t want their elderly mother tested anymore than their teenager.

Grandma might think it a darned fine idea. When I was passing out condoms in downtown Sebastopol I gave one to an 80 year old neighbor who said, “Why, I haven’t seen one of those for years.” Then she smiled and slipped it in her pocket.

Helen Mirren may have just helped out John McCain. At least in the ageism debate.
Many people automatically assume that a 63-year-old woman is too old for a bikini. And many argue that a 72-year-old man is too old to become president.

Both concerns come from the popular “ism” that a person’s chronological age is their most defining characteristic and therefore determines who they are and what they can do.

Helen Mirren has demonstrated that she does swimmingly in a red bikini, as evidenced in photos of her Italian vacation which won hurrahs for her flat stomach, smooth thighs and chutzpah. But, even though her physical charms appear limitless, and they are enviable, it’s still her superior acting that counts most.

Now, how about John McCain? We’ve got his various political positions to bat around. But is his age a fair target? I hope the Obama campaign can take the high road on this issue. First, because their guy, at 47, could be vulnerable to ageism from the other end. And because he doesn’t want to offend people over age 50 who are expected to make up half the voters in November. There are a lot of Boomers, especially ones hitting retirement age, who are sensitive to being labeled by the year they were born.

Men age, women rot.

I discussed the age issue with a couple of powerful Democratic women who you might expect to seize on any negative they could find on McCain. But they think his vintage should be left out of the contest. California Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey and former Colorado congresswoman Pat Schroeder know their “isms.” Both were Hillary Clinton supporters and smarted over the sexism that came out during her campaign.

Schroeder, who was in Congress for more than 20 years and made a bid for the presidential nomination in 1987, was a regular on talk shows earlier this year, blasting the media for its misogyny, likening the treatment of Hillary Clinton to the Salem Witch Trials. Schroeder saw some ageism, too, in the Hillary attacks, recalling Rush Limbaugh’s comment about Americans not wanting to watch a woman president grow old before their eyes. And even though Schroeder still thinks sexism was the greater culprit, she said, “There’s no question that sexism and ageism are very related. It’s the old thing about ‘men age, women rot.’

Were a woman contemporary of McCain to put herself out there, the response would be harsher, said Schroeder. For example, she thinks Dianne Feinstein would make a great candidate. But Feinstein is 75. And if she ran, said Schroeder, “they’d nail her on her age.”

The last time Lynn Woolsey ran for re-election, a columnist, who supported her younger male opponent, said it was time to get someone younger with more energy. Woolsey defended herself, saying, “I can’t help my age but I don’t believe anyone has more energy than I do.”

Woolsey, who is two years younger than McCain, said she doesn’t think 72 is that old. “Age isn’t the issue. But health and vitality are.”

Schroeder said that’s what people should be looking at – “to make sure the person has good mental faculties and is in fairly good shape.”

And then you can go after that person on the really important things – like the war, health care, immigration, women’s rights, messing with the ocean digging for oil.

The rest is no more relevant than how you stuff a wild bikini.