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I really feel for the author of the letter. There is real joy in the chase, the crush, the desire, the butterflies in the stomach. How painful when the act--the conclusion of the chase, in a way--doesn't live up to its slow, delicious build. There is also an aspect of sex that is repugnantly animal and uncivilized; it is often jarring when sex is less romantic, chivalrous, or exciting than its months and months of physical, intellectual, and emotional foreplay.
Beyond that, I would agree with Sandra's assessment. I very recently read somewhere, and I can certainly believe it, that women of a certain age very frequently lose interest in sex not because of a hormonal change, but because they are no longer attracted to their own bodies. If such is the case, and this is really a matter of cultural pressure and anxiety, I might suggest that the author of this letter try intercourse with her own clothing on. Let her partner remain dressed, too! Or why not simply dim the lights? Or, if those suggestions feel too tawdry, why not study herself in the mirror, and come to love her skin, however changed she might find it? For that matter, it is surprisingly easy, after a little study, to come to cherish and relish in the body of a partner, its frame, its idiosyncracies, however "dumpy" the body might initially seem.
Of course, these suggestions are probably all wrong. I think Mr. Tennis' final diagnosis--that she might come to enjoy intercourse once she feels permitted to enjoy absolutely nothing about it--is not only sound, but likely.
