In Alice McDermott's short story, "Enough," the grown children of an older woman are shocked to discover that she still is a passionately sexual person. When Bing Crosby sings, "Kiss me once and kiss me twice" on a record they have given her, she says, "If you don't turn this off, I'm going to have to find a place to be alone with your father." 

Later, when her husband lies dying in the hospital, she unbuttons her blouse and places his hand on her breast. "Now, really," her daughter cries. 

Until recently, Mrs. Robinson notwithstanding, sex and the older woman was not a subject much talked about, and McDermott's characters aren't the only ones who'd rather not think about their parents' sex lives. 

But attitudes have been shifting. The generation of women liberated by feminism and the pill in the 1960s aren't slipping quietly into postmenopausal celibacy, and books and movies are reflecting the change. 

There is a raft of new books with the message that women over 50 can be sexually attractive and can have great sex, including Gail Sheehy's "Sex and the Seasoned Woman," an anecdote-filled compendium of women living what Sheehy calls "fully and passionately," coming out this month from Random House. 

Depictions of sexually vibrant older women have been turning up in movies - Diane Keaton in "Something's Gotta Give" (2003), Charlotte Rampling in "The Swimming Pool" (also 2003), Barbra Streisand as a sexual healer for elderly couples in "Meet the Fockers" (2004) - and on television, most recently on Oxygen, which just began a new series, "Campus Ladies," about middle-aged women as college students cavorting with male undergraduates. 

"It began with movies that featured romantic scenes with older women, like 'Something's Gotta Give,' and 'Under the Sand' with Charlotte Rampling," said Carol Schneider, executive publicity director of the Random House Publishing Group, which is bringing out Sheehy's book. "That paved the way for people writing about the sex lives of older women. This is ground that has not been covered extensively before. We put these books out because there is a market for them." 

The new books are intended for a generation of women who were inculcated early on with the idea that sexual pleasure was their right. And those women are not about to go gently into that good night, said Katha Pollitt, a poet who writes a column on politics and feminism for The Nation. Sheehy, 68, offers perceptions that are bound to be received enthusiastically by her audience. 

"A seasoned woman is spicy," she writes. "She has been marinated in life experience. Like complex wine, she can be alternately sweet, tart, sparkling, mellow." 

Typical of the subjects is a woman she calls Janet whose husband left her for a younger woman. She was 53 when she met a man 20 years younger. 

"I experienced sex that night in ways that I did not know were possible," she told Sheehy. Then there is 74-year-old "Regina," arthritic, who finds sexual bliss with an 80-year-old man. "She made her last visit to the psychiatrist and told him, 'Not only is my depression gone, my arthritic pains have disappeared,"' Sheehy writes. 

By and large, the books carry an optimistic message - that despite age, menopause and wrinkles, women can continue to enjoy sex. 

Yet the truth is that women tend to live longer than men, and finding a partner is often difficult. And there are some who view the new celebrations of older women's sexual potential with skepticism. "These are wonderful aspirations, but they may not be so easy to get to," said Linda Gordon, a historian at New York University, who writes about women's experience. "There are a lot of physicians who will say human bodies are not designed to last this long." 

For years, hormone replacement therapy held the promise of eternal sexual youth - until it was found to have potentially dangerous side effects, including an increased risk of breast cancer. 

And what about older women who really don't want to have a lot of sex? 

"Sex's importance is constructed," said Leonore Tiefer, a professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine. "It can be very important or not so important. The trouble for me is when the answer for that is uniform. That's an oppressive message."