At what age do you plan to retire your genitals?

That's the response Joan Price gives journalists who interview the senior sex expert and raise the "ick" factor, the "oh, creepy, older people having sex, how disgusting" line, she says.

Her anecdote is greeted with guffaws from her audience – many silver-haired - at the Let's Talk About Sex conference, in Melbourne on Tuesday and Wednesday, which focuses on sexual intimacy and ageing.

Price, 71, is a US-based expert on sex and ageing, and the author of books including The Ultimate Guide to Sex after 50, which she wrote after she experienced a sexual epiphany with her new partner in her 50s and realised there were no books on the topic.

After her book was published Price was shocked to read the first sentence of a review that ran in her local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle: "Now that boomers have decided there is sex after 60, could they please stop talking about it?"

No, she says, she won't.

"We are sexual beings, we are deserving of sexual pleasure and we are deserving of policy changes so that when we are no longer independent we can make our own decisions about when and how we have sex," she says.

Senior sex, as Price calls it, remains a deeply misunderstood topic. In many aged care residential homes there are still restrictions on staff who want to accommodate requests from clients for privacy so that they can continue their sexual lives.

Saul Ibister is a sex worker and president of Touching Base, a NSW-based volunteer-run charity that helps link people with disabilities with disability-friendly sex workers, and advises on accessible brothels in their local areas (many local councils do not allow brothels to operate at street level).

Services like this garnered considerable public interest with the release of The Sessions in 2012, which starred Helen Hunt as a sex surrogate for a man with disabilities, and Australian-made Scarlet Road, which featured one of the founding members of Touching Base.

Ibister first began working with people with disabilities two decades ago, when he arrived at the house of a client and found the man used a wheelchair.

Ibister was a little taken aback, but the man explained his wife was out of town, his mistress was overseas and he wanted to explore his male-to-male attraction.

"I realised then just how diverse the sexual lives of people with disabilities could be," Ibister says with a smile.

Older people have always been part of the client base of sex workers. This can be through the loss of a partner, a partner's loss of interest in sex or a desire to pursue new sexual practices, he says.

Since Touching Base introduced a guide for disability services providers three years ago, 100 services have purchased it and asked for specialist training for their staff.

But attitudinal change can be slow.

Dr Rosie King, a NSW sex educator, says people of all ages – not just older people – face barriers to embracing their sexuality.

Consider abstinence programs, she tells the conference: "They tell teenagers sex is damaging, dirty and disgusting ... so save it for someone you love."

Sydney Morning Herald