Ask Joan follows the life and work of Joan Price, a charismatic 80-year-old author and sex-advice columnist who is on a mission to help seniors, especially women, grab as much pleasure as they can. Joan’s own unapologetic sexuality, her humor, and flat-out refusal to accept society’s limiting of her options represent a complex and inspirational portrait of what older life can be.
Joan explores senior sex through her writing, workshops, and her sex advice column, Ask Joan, on Senior Planet, which is part of AARP. Many of her followers need information about how to navigate older sex. Others are in need of validation for their sexual desires, whether it’s a woman wanting to experiment with being with women for the first time or a third-stage ovarian cancer survivor whose doctors are dismissing her for talking about wanting help with painful sex.
We also follow Joan’s life from being a “wild child” in the 1970s to realizing she had become invisible as she aged, to finding a great love, losing him, and then meeting her current partner at 73. Animation plays an important role in storytelling, visually capturing intimate scenes. From Joan discovering the joy of older sex to a religious widow, 74, inspired by Joan’s books, to face her feelings of foolishness and go into a sex shop to buy a vibrator, these animated sequences foster empathy and a connection to a subject often ridiculed or considered taboo.
Ask Joan affirms the joyful, embodied experiences of women over 65 – a group that makes up 10% of the U.S. population, yet remains dramatically underrepresented in popular media. Her work also aligns with the sex-positive movement. By connecting how the sexuality of seniors, people with disabilities, and much of the queer community are all excluded from the mainstream, the film offers new ways for younger audiences to view older sexuality and opens up new possibilities for intergenerational allies.