Jaya Sharma is 62. But she doesn’t play by the scripts that society has written for ageing bodies.
Jaya, a feminist and queer activist based in Goa, discovered kink in her late forties. It was an experience that reshaped not only her erotic life but also her politics.
In a culture that renders older people asexual and still largely sees queer love as an aberration, the idea of an ageing queer person embracing kink is revolutionary. Why does desire become threatening when it refuses to fade? And what is the place of pleasure that is not justified by romance or reproduction?
In this conversation with queerbeat, Jaya reflects on ageing, consent, and the politics of respectability within queer movements. She speaks about entering kink spaces as the oldest newbie, how BDSM practices offer nuanced models of consent that work across ageing and disability, and why uncertainty, not certainty, has become her most radical learning. For Jaya, kink is not youthful rebellion or spectacle; it is a space of play and possibility, one that allows ageing queer bodies to remain visible and desirable.
You’ve described yourself as the oldest newbie when you entered kink spaces. What did that experience teach you about age and power?
When I entered the kink community at 47, I was often the oldest person in the room, but also the least experienced. That disrupted the assumption that age equals authority or expertise. In kink, age doesn’t automatically determine power. You can be ‘older’ and ‘younger.’ You can feel younger in a dynamic, regardless of your actual years. It separates physical age from the age you experience yourself as in an erotic context. That shift can be liberating.
Kink is not typically associated with ageing bodies. What happens when queer people refuse to outgrow kink, and instead age into it?
Mainstream society, and even parts of the queer movement, want to believe that love is the glue that holds everything together. Kink suggests that you can have a transcendental erotic experience with someone you aren’t emotionally involved with at all.
When you add an older body to that mix, it challenges the idea that sex is only for the young and fit. For example, I have a back problem. In a conventional setting, that might be seen as a reason to stop or be careful. But in kink, there is a matter-of-factness about the realities of the body. It allows us to talk about limits and desires without shame, moving away from the pathologizing of older bodies.
Kink is a spectrum, and in one sense, we are all kinky. However, some of us experience kink as a sexual orientation where kinky desires are central to who we are. In this context, asking if one can outgrow kink is like asking a queer person if they can outgrow their queerness; when it is that fundamental to your identity and your desires, it is simply who you are.
At the same time, the nature of desire is fluid. I do not mean to say this flippantly, as if choosing between pasta or pizza. But the fact is that our desires are changeful—and that is a great thing. My own journey reflects this: I discovered my queerness at 35 and kink at 47. One cannot know for certain how their erotic or kinky desires might shift or intensify over time. But for those of us for whom kink is an orientation, it is as unlikely to disappear from our lives as our queerness.
How does kink challenge respectability politics within queer movements, especially when it comes to ageing and desirability?
Kink is subversive because it de-links erotic intensity from emotional intimacy. As an older person, society expects my sexuality to either disappear or become very soft. But I am a submissive and a masochist; I love submission and I love pain. In the realm of kink, my ability to enjoy and take pain matters more than whether my body is conventionally attractive according to age-related norms. It [kink] refuses the sanitising discourse that tries to make queer lives palatable to the mainstream.
Consent is often framed as cognitive clarity and physical capacity. What does ethical kink look like when bodies age, memories falter, or care and dependency enter the scene?
A big mistake we make about consent, before we even get to age or memory, is assuming it’s a purely cognitive phenomenon. We imagine that consent means clearly knowing what we want in advance. But desire doesn’t work that way. Our desires are changeful, sometimes surprising, and not entirely within our conscious control. The unconscious is always at play.
We might enter an intimate situation thinking we know what we want, only to discover feelings or responses we didn’t anticipate. Desire is not neat or fully predictable; it’s messy. So consent cannot be reduced to a rational checklist. It has to account for uncertainty and discovery. Ethical consent mechanisms must reflect the realities of desire, not just what we are already aware of at a conscious level.
This is where kink offers something powerful. Practices like safe words, hard limits, and aftercare recognise that consent is ongoing. I’m especially fond of aftercare—not just as care, but as reflection. Talking afterward allows us to ask: What did I feel? What surprised me? How was that for my body and mind?
These practices work beautifully across ageing, disability, neurodivergence, and bodily change because they create space for matter-of-fact conversations about limits without shame.
How do kink-specific tools like safe words empower older practitioners?
Safe words provide a mechanism for agency that prevents others from making assumptions based on a person’s age. An older practitioner can use a safe word to encourage a dominant to go further, reassuring them that they can handle more intensity despite their age. This ensures the practitioner is not stopped before they are satisfied simply because of ageist assumptions about fragility.
It’s a very good way of actually challenging notions around age. [Sometimes] my use of the safe word was to say ‘don’t stop before I am satisfied. Don’t assume that I’m 62 years old, so I can’t handle this.’
What have you observed about queer ageing within kink communities in India?
One positive difference from mainstream society is that age gaps are far less fraught in queer and kink spaces. There’s more openness and less moral panic. Kink also offers imaginative freedom: you’re not limited to the social role assigned to your age. You can enter a space of play where identity, power, and even age are temporarily reworked. That flexibility can be deeply affirming for older queer people whose desires don’t disappear just because society expects them to.
How has ageing within kink shaped you politically and personally?
Kink has taught me to be comfortable with uncertainty. Surprise is at the heart of desire, you don’t always know what will move you, what will scare you, or what will feel liberating. That’s a powerful political lesson in a world obsessed with certainty and moral clarity. Kink has helped me embrace complexity, loosen judgment toward myself and others, and see uncertainty not as danger, but as a space for possibility.