What is intimacy like for older people? There is no end to sex scenes and other exciting content starring young, wrinkle-free people, but after a certain age, popular culture draws a blank or treats sex as a punchline.

Last year, artist Marilyn Minter set out to change that, bringing together a group of men and women aged 70 and older in her New York studio to show a less-seen side of sex and relationships. In erotic and colorful images, older people are naked and left in lingerie or underpants; They hug, kiss and caress each other in the heat of the moment. The photographs draw our attention to challenge something that is still considered taboo, showing playful and loving moments of pleasure.

“There’s so much disdain for older people’s sex. Even one of the models I worked with said, ‘Who wants to see all this?'” Minter recalled in a video call with CNN.

“My whole thought process was that we are pioneers,” he continued of the blatantly sexualized context. “No one has ever photographed older people lovingly and with any kind of elegance. And that was my goal: to make them look very desirable.”

Some of the images below were originally published in the New York Times Magazine, accompanying a candid editorial about the sex lives of older people. Minter is now publishing the entire series in the upcoming book “Elder Sex” and exhibiting it at the LGDR gallery in New York. The exhibition, which opened in April, is her first solo show in the city since the Brooklyn Museum mounted its “Pretty/Dirty” retrospective in 2016, and features highlights from her five-decade career as well as other new work.

In “Elder Sex,” Minter used one of his signature aesthetics, which he has explored in both hyperrealist paintings and photographs: tightly cropped, jewel-toned compositions of shimmering bodies, seemingly displayed through the glass of a fogged mirror or window. But despite her credentials as one of today’s most important and groundbreaking artists, and despite stars like Lady Gaga and Lizzo posing for her, Minter couldn’t find enough real couples willing to participate.

“We wanted to (include) all races, all types of sex,” Minter explained. “We had a lot of problems getting models. I’m 74 years old. I asked all my friends (in mixed-race relationships, in lesbian relationships) and none of them wanted to do it.”

In the end, Minter cast actors alongside the few people who had accepted. He paired them up in his studio and photographed them behind a frozen pane of glass, a trick to achieve the wet, smoky look without fighting the ephemerality of water vapor. During the photo shoots, Minter said that all of his models, who were up to 89 years old, told him that they still had a regular and pleasurable sex life. Their feelings echoed those of people interviewed for the New York Times Magazine article, who described deeper intimacy with their partners later in life, as well as learning to navigate and appreciate their needs as their bodies aged.

Minter believes there is a sense of freedom in sex later in life that, for many people, can take time to achieve.

“When you’re young and having sex, it’s a little more performative than when you’re 80,” she said. As an older person, “you think, ‘This is me. Take it or leave it. I’m just going to have fun. I’m not going to fake anything here.'”

Minter recognizes that sex and self-image are complicated for women of all ages: older women are rarely seen or taken seriously for having intimate needs, while for younger women, sexual agency is often a tightrope walk; too much and you can be “vilified and shamed,” Minter said.

“When you’re 25, there’s a lot of fear of young women owning sexual capacity; it’s just terrifying to people,” she said.

Marilyn Minter reveals steamy pictures from her ‘shower’

Marilyn Minter reveals steamy pictures from her ‘shower’

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But the artist sees some progress in who comes to be seen as desirable on our television screens, reflecting a widening shift in cultural attitudes around sex. He pointed to photos in People magazine comparing the characters of “The Golden Girls” and “Sex and the City,” who are the same age at the time of the latter’s reboot on HBO Max (which is owned by CNN parent company Warner Bros. Discovery). “The 50s look very different than 2020!” exclaimed a legend.

Although “The Golden Girls” also delved into romance and intimacy, and was widely seen as remarkably sex-positive for its time, there is a stark contrast in how women in their 50s are presented in the two shows.

“I thought, ‘Okay, here’s why it’s different,'” he said. “Number one: people live much longer and are healthier…Number two: there is something called Viagra.” Minter laughed and added: “But who retired at 54? To a house in Florida with three other women? What?”

She hopes that “Elder Sex” will not only serve as a much-needed visual reference for what intimacy at older ages can be like, but will also resonate for people who feel like their desires (and their lives) are overlooked.

“It gives permission to people who feel ashamed of their sexual urges,” she said. “I want this to give them permission to explore that and erase the shame.”

“older sex”, published by JBE Books, is available now.