GIVING YOUR SEX LIFE SOME OOMPH: CRYSTALS FOR GERIATRICS

I have to say immediately that this post is not a joke and neither is it meant to be. Just in case there are readers out there who think I’m spoofing I have to tell you that there are a wide variety of people who genuinely believe that quartz crystals can spice up their sex lives and nowhere is this belief more prevalent than in the elderly. In fact it’s true to say that the older people get the more likely they are to give the idea credibility. It applies to men in particular but there’s also no shortage of women who nurture the view that a crystal with ‘powerful energy’ might somehow be able to buzz up their hormones again. In short, that part of the title, Crystals for Geriatrics is, from a market trader’s point of view, not so fanciful as it seems.

And how do I know about these things? Well I’ll tell you. It’s because they talk to me about it! It’s not as if they immediately come out with it, like have you got a crystal that will give me an erection… or a friend of mine told me that some of these crystals can get to parts of you that not even Viagra can reach! No, the connection between crystals and sex is broached in a more subtle manner. Usually as part of a conversation which develops into something specific to that particular area and bit by bit to that particular person. It’s a bad idea to ‘feed’ this conversation in any way or worse still try to direct it. It’s the customer who, in my experience, wants to talk. Hopes you will listen and eventually comment. In nearly all such cases it’s enough for me to show interest by nodding my head and saying things like ‘yes’ or ‘right’. Waiting to see where they’re going before coming out with any views of my own.

It is only when the customer, often an elderly gentleman on his own or occasionally accompanied by his wife, is well along with his ‘enquiry’ and wants to say something that I begin to discuss the powers of crystals and their possible healing energies in directions which might further their interest. There’s nothing crude in any of it. Nothing rude or naughty. I try to stay analytical. Objective though encouraging. Above all interested and hopeful! Let me make it clear then. There’s no talk about willies or pussies. Most definitely not the latter to elderly ladies! What on earth would they take me for? No, tiptoeing my way round the subject like the Sugar Plum Fairy is far more likely to inculcate interest than taking a Kango Hammer to such sensibilities. In matters such as these being a good listener ‘with a certain interest’ let us say, is all that is needed. A mutual understanding between a customer’s delicate interest and possible needs and a crystal healer’s considerate knowledge and advice is always best. The geriatric as the unspoken sex patient and me as the crystal doctor from whom they seek advice. And if they like what I advise, purchase a crystal that might re-energise the physical side of their lives.

The above is a general but accurate description of the course of such contact. When they ask me, as they invariably do, whether I’ve ever tried it, I’m always truthful with my reply. Fortunately I’ve never needed such therapy myself, the word being key to the whole process. Crystal healing viewed as a kind of therapy. Often emotional, soothing, relaxing, stabilising and calming. Often innervating and enlivening. Physically as well as psychologically. Working to restore physical as well as emotional strengths and balance. The idea of their restorative power is particularly important. That is the general healing purpose of crystals. To create and promote wellbeing. The two notions feed off each other. Restoration promotes wellbeing and vice-versa.

It requires no great leap of imagination however to take the idea of restoration the small but necessary step forward required to shift the parameter from the realm of the spiritual to that of the physical. It is the process from where the story of this post begins because bridging the two worlds of the physical and the spiritual is the sexual. The purpose of crystal healing is to create the fundamental unity of both. Explaining the value of quartz crystals in these terms makes the possibility of their innervating and restorative powers being better understood.

Look, it’s all very simple. We run a business. We don’t judge people on the basis of age or appearance. All people who come to the stall are equal, but then being business people, those who clearly have money to spend are more equal than others, so when old George appeared with his Zimmer Frame and straggly grey beard innocuously enquiring about the loving powers of Rose Quartz, I accepted his interest for what it was. He’d clearly heard about healing from someone or other. It was only when he returned a week later wanting to talk about the energising powers of quartz crystals and jokingly asked me whether they could do anything for his love life that I suspected where he was going! The initial chuckle between us soon moved on to the subject of innervation.

Were the powers of crystals actually restorative? “Physically I mean?” he enquired, showing me a full set of dentures. “Did they… could they?”

He left the last part of his enquiry incomplete, waiting for me to answer.

“You want to know whether they might…”

I hesitated. He could have been a retired copper. Trying to catch me out on some indiscretion! We ran a straight business but the law was as flexible as they wanted to make it!

“Whether they’ll help me get an erection,” he finally came out bold as brass.

I could have blushed with shame! Respectable Old George with his Zimmer Frame, asking me questions like that! The mind boggled. I just didn’t want to think what he had on the go. He could have been a Tory M.P. with some young girl tucked away in his London flat courtesy of expenses on the taxpayer. Vital for his constituency work no doubt! His blue rinse wife making the rounds of the Women’s Institute and doing charitable good deeds somewhere in Surrey all unsuspecting while her husband was hoping a quartz crystal would help him get it up in the capital.

I looked at him direct. “If you buy one of the big ones, grip it in your hand and think about what you want there’s every chance it’ll help,” I said encouragingly. “The energies will do their bit. Make you feel active. More aggressive. You’ve just got to enjoy the idea,” I added positively.

I could hear myself being a therapist. In some areas of medicine, placebos play an important role. The same might be said of crystals as an agent of sex therapy. Who could tell? George bought one of my largest double terminated quartz crystals with a satisfied smile. Twenty quid thank you very much. If he scored it would be worth ten times more to him only I didn’t want him to come back telling me. Some occasionally did. Like I was some kind of father confessor, but they’re only a few out of many. Maybe it didn’t work for the majority or maybe they just don’t want to communicated the details. That said, no-one’s ever asked for their money back! And when they return on occasion it isn’t their wives that they’re talking about.

This brings me to the other half of the matter. Old ladies and crystals. If you don’t want to know you can stop here. I don’t mind, but when I say old ladies I mean old ladies who are still sparky if you know what I mean. Many are wealthy. Often upper crust. Husbands died and left them a packet. But then it’s not all about Lady Agnes up at The Lodge. There are all kinds of elderly women, of all classes, though the great majority are in the middle, for whom the fires haven’t yet faded and to whom the hormonal buzz still applies. Keen to step out from respectability for a final last gasp fling, preferably with a stranger. Anyone else is too risky. Too close. Even so, this kind of thing is the exception let it be said. The truth more often closer to home. A genuine desire to appeal to their husbands. Married forty years and still keen. Flabby in every department yet still wanting, still hoping to excite. Tired of going to bed early with him busy working the Babe Station channels or worried about the little Polish blonde at the bank. The one who keeps asking him if there’s anything more she can do for him with a sly smile after she’s handed over the money. Next thing you know she’ll have titillated him into a divorce, given him a heart attack and then copped the lot!

That’s why elderly ladies, more often than not, come to the stall to talk about the loving nature of Rose Quartz. It’s not usually the innervating, restorative energies of quartz crystals they’re interested in although their thoughts may ultimately lie in that direction. Truth is they’re more interested in stimulating affection. Sex is only the consummation of an amorous loving relationship not the egotistical bang-bang desires of men. For most women, sexuality is more a matter of sharing. Its basic character primarily altruistic. Sure they want what they want but they also want love to go with it. For men it’s more egotistical. A desire to dominate. Many women understand and accept this. When they discuss the matter with my wife they might want to try their hand with a quartz crystal but more often than not first go for Rose Quartz. Maybe try their luck with something else later.

There are things I can talk about and things that I can’t. Indeed there are things I can’t say in this post but I will mention Celia, a delightful well-spoken grandmother who came to our stall only recently. Quiet, dignified and well dressed. Trying to look attractive. Clearly happily married. Talked about her husband with pride. Ex forces man. Ran his own business. Kept himself fit and still a good looking man. Trouble was he didn’t seem to be interested in her any more.

I listened, hardly daring to say anything. They’d been married well over forty years. Who could say what was what? Maybe he just didn’t like what he saw when she had her kit off. In that case nothing could help let alone a stick of silica dioxide. Time to give it up. Retire gracefully into the bosom of family. No point getting desperate about what she couldn’t have any more.

It wasn’t easy. There was no point saying these things. Even so I still wanted to advise. A crystal wasn’t necessarily the answer. Rose Quartz however was a loving, calming stone. It was much more likely to help.

I’ll never forget what she said. She didn’t need that kind of help. She wanted her husband to be busy with her the way he once was.

She gave me a look. As though to suggest I knew what she meant. I knew all right but it was somewhere I didn’t want to go. Even so it made me think. How would I feel about my own wife when she was that age, and how would she feel about me? It’s not exactly an uncommon thing. The lines from a poem by Robert Herrick who wrote in the seventeenth century came to mind. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles to-day…To-morrow will be dying.” True it was titled, To the Virgins, to make much of Time but somehow the words seemed appropriate and there are many old people who think that crystals, one way or another, can delay the whole process. I wanted to tell Celia to have a chat with her doctor and maybe go to some sex therapy classes on the NHS but didn’t have the heart. He’d probably suggest she go private and recommend some scoundrel he knew who’d give her the talk and take all her money. I didn’t want to do that. In the end I sold her a superb Rose Quartz crystal pendant. A beautiful piece from Madagascar set in silver on a silver chain and suggested she get her husband to fasten it round her neck. She liked that. It was very romantic. I liked it too. She seemed happy and the price was good for both of us. I hoped it might help in some way and that her husband would adore her again in the way that she wanted. She was so neat and feisty a lady. Age shouldn’t matter, not really, only for most men it does. That and appearance. For most men appearance is everything and they make their women know it. But then women can be equally the same.

That’s where crystals come in. When I hear the tap, tap, tap of a walking stick or see a dolly on a trolley approaching the stall I know that they’re coming in hope. And who am I, as a market trader sailing the high seas of commerce, to deny any sex starved geriatric the expectation that… every crystal would do its duty!