Listener Week: Sex in your 70s, Risky sports, Cost of men and women's haircuts

Woman's Hour

Listener Week is when all the topics, interviews and discussions are chosen by YOU!

Woman's Hour listener Elaine asked the programme to discuss the issue of having sex in later life. Elaine is in her seventies and her partner would like to resume a sexual relationship. They are both negotiating medical conditions and she feels reluctant. Elaine would like to know what is typical or normal in your seventies. Sex and relationship therapist Charlene Douglas and Dr Clare Gerada, former President of the Royal College of General Practitioners, explain the medical and emotional challenges around intimacy in later life and the accommodations that can be made if older couples want to have sex.

Listener Teigan Banks got in touch. ‘I would love to talk about how losing my mum at 11 has led to attachment to maternal figures throughout my life and sometimes this can be negative. In all the grief media I see this is something I never see spoken about and it can be quite isolating. I’m sure other people who have lost parents have experienced similar things. I’m 21 now and this is something I still struggle with. I can feel guilty for these attachments as I feel like I’m forgetting my own mum. But knowing these people can’t really replace my mum or be that for me.’ Anita is joined by Teigan to talk about these issues and also by Julia Samuel, a psychotherapist, the author of Grief Works.

Why can women’s haircuts cost more than men’s, at the same salon? One listener has asked us to find out. Anita is joined by Caroline Larissey, chief executive of the National Hair and Beauty Federation, a trade organisation for the hair, barbering and beauty industries, and equality lawyer Elizabeth McGlone, who has short hair.

Listener Kitty Dowry wanted us to take a look at so called 'risky' sports, and to encourage us all to look at them in a different way. Kitty is a climber; she has been doing it for 10 years and wants to see more women give it a go, even those who might have written it off for fear of it being too dangerous. Kitty joins Anita, as does Hazel Findlay, a professional climber and coach.

Listener Ameya is a 20 year old singer-songwriter. She joins Anita to talk about her music, explain how her songs represent her neurodiversity, and discuss why it’s important for her, as a British-Indian woman, to break into the mainstream and raise awareness of autism.

Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rebecca Myatt