Q: I am a 71 years old man. Having lived a full life, happy marriage and now a widower, with children all well settled, I am not able to get rid of erotic thoughts, which I cannot express to anybody else for consultation. Sometimes I get full erection and so masturbate. I get seminal discharge too. How do I get rid of these erotic thoughts? I took to spiritualism and read the Gita, Upanishads, puranas, etc. but still, whenever I sit on the computer I start viewing erotic sites. I am known as a spiritually oriented man and people around me respect me. But nobody knows this dark side of me. Please tell me how to get rid of these erotic thoughts.

A:Stop feeling guilty about antediluvian concepts and ideas that have no basis in biologic reality. Sex is man's second strongest instinct, after survival. Men have sex in their lives in some form or the other till they die, unless they are infirm with some physical or mental illness. World-wide, geriatric sexuality is much more common than people imagine, and is perfectly normal. My oldest patient is an Indian male, aged 86, who was sexually active with a wife 40 years younger than him, until three months before he came to see me for erectile dysfunction. Being spiritual is not synonymous with being abstemious. You are lucky to be so sexual at your age. Not all elderly people have this privilege. Many are crippled with heart disease, stroke, osteoarthritis, Alzheimer's, etc. What are you complaining about? Get yourself a partner. You don't need to get rid of these erotic thoughts; you need to stop feeling guilty about them, and start to enjoy them. Masturbate, have sex, ejaculate. It all takes just a few minutes. After that, you have plenty of time in the day in which to be `spiritual'. Your friends will respect you even more if you tell them you are sexually active. Most will be green with envy!