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Knees pop and hips crack as we get older, and though our skin loses some sensitivity as we age, Charla Hathaway says the skin’s thinning can actually lead to more pleasant touch sensations from one another. It’s just one example of how human sexuality shifts as we age, but never has an expiration date.
“So many people later in life say, ‘No more, I’m tired of doing all the stuff I was told I was supposed to like, and maybe never really did like. I’m just giving up on sex,’ and my workshops help people get back in the game,” Hathaway says. “If you lay your hand on an elderly person’s arm and you say something, you will have a different impact than if you had said it not touching them.”
When she’s not teaching massage and couple’s classes on romantic beaches, Hathaway tours her one-woman show, Naked at My Age. Hathaway debuted Naked at My Age during the 2020 Fertile Ground Festival, where she won a grant to further develop and tour the show. After performing last year and taking it around the world, Hathaway brings Naked back to the Echo Theater on Saturday, Aug. 17.
Now in her 70s, Hathaway turned to sex work following her divorce in her 50s. For over 20 years, Hathaway has held numerous titles as a sex worker: intimacy coordinator, sensual masseuse, erotic muse and, yes, escort. She wrote two books, founded the Austin-based BodyJoy Intimacy School, and holds a PhD in clinical sexology from the Institute for the Advanced Studies of Human Sexuality, which closed in 2018.
Hathaway marveled about performing Naked at My Age in Australia, where sex work has never been banned and is largely decriminalized, and how openly her audience members discussed their jobs with her after the show.
“They would tell about their experiences, which sound so different than ours,” Hathaway says. “They were willing to talk in an audience, even with strangers, about working at female brothels where they didn’t have to see anyone they didn’t want to see, where they felt safe and in community and protected, where the police were on their side and not against them.”
Her sexual renaissance didn’t strike out of the clear blue sky. Hathaway says she was never a prude, and credits belly dancing classes she took in her 20s with teaching her how to move her body, as well as a “body electric workshop” she took in her 50s called “Celebrating the Body Erotic.”
“I was in a marriage for 20 years, and I had to hold back and not show my arousal,” Hathaway says. “This was a problem that didn’t get addressed in my 20-year marriage.”
In her one-hour show, Hathaway details how she first answered a client’s ad, and how one of Texas’ leading madams, the Blue Bonnet Madame of Austin, took her under wing to work independently of escort agencies. She believes the United States’ criminalization of sex work only harms the human trafficking victims that anti-sex politicians say they want to save. Hathaway shared how attitudes toward sex work have changed in her lifetime.
“There wasn’t this conflating of sex trafficking with sex work back then,” she says of when she got her start 20 years ago. “They’re purposely conflating and confusing adult consensual sex work with the forced coercion of people, and they didn’t have to deal with that [in New Zealand] because they could see the difference, and respected the difference.”
If audience members learn more about their own bodies or sexuality after seeing her show, like they do in her educational workshops, Hathaway will consider the show a success.
“It’s the world’s oldest profession,” she says. “You’re not going to snuff out that people are sad, people are lonely, people are uneducated and unable to see and feel and enjoy their own bodies. We all need professional help, especially in our communities where sex is stigmatized and shamed. We cut off a girl with skills because we don’t want to talk about it.”
CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to better express Charla Hathaway’s career.
SEE IT: Naked at My Age plays at Echo Theater Company, 1515 SE 37th Ave., 971-267-3246, echotheaterpdx.org. 7:30 pm Saturday, Aug. 17. $25. 18+.