Sex and the Senior Years

October 26, 2009

Like many aspects of aging, younger men and women would prefer to think about something other than how they might feel, think, and act beyond the age of sixty-five.

Once we pass 50, however, we begin to face the inevitable that just as aging came to our parents, and grandparents, our aunts and uncles, in time it will come to us as well.

Often we’re curious about many aspects of our lives as seniors. In what ways will we function well, and in what areas might we fall well below the mental and physical capacity that we had in our forties and fifties?

Of course one of those areas of curiosity is the sex lives of older adults. There have been many surveys on that subject during recent years, but perhaps none as comprehensive and revealing as that done in 2007 by the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine.

In interviews after the research team’s work was reported in several media outlets including the prestigious, New England Journal of Medicine, Stacy Tessler Lindau, the study’s leader explained that as more people live longer lives they have “higher expectations for what aging should be like. We spend billions on treating such issues as erectile dysfunction. Yet we have no baseline data on sexuality in later life. These findings will give people a sense of whether what they’re experiencing is typical or not.”

The survey found that many older adults are sexually active. Women, however, are less likely than men to have a spousal or other intimate relationships and to be sexually active. Unfortunately the survey also revealed that sexual problems are frequent among older adults, but these problems are infrequently discussed with physicians.

Among men, the most common problem was erectile difficulties. Fourteen percent of men said they used medicine or supplements to boost their sexual performance.

Women said lack of desire, difficulty with lubrication, and inability to climax, were their most common problems.

But while much of that is the kind of news that thirty-somethings and forty-somethings would rather not hear, fifty plus men and women will be pleased to learn, as Professor Edward Laumann, one of the study’s authors reported,  “It turns out that healthy people are sexually active if they have a partner, and that this is an important part of their quality of life.”

Survey participants reported sex with a partner during the last year as follows:

73% of those aged 57 to 64

53% of those aged 64 to 75

26% of those aged 75 to 85

A total of 3,005 people aged 57 to 85 participated in the study. Of those who said they were sexually active, most said they were having sex at least two or three times a month.

Half of the people surveyed up to age 75 said they have continued to have oral sex, and about half of the men and a quarter of the women said they masturbated, regardless of whether they had a sexual partner.

Somewhere a twenty-something just said, “Yuk!” But to those who have lived long enough to realize that aging is as unexpected as tomorrow’s sunrise, it’s nice to know that for many people in their later years, as Dr. Lindau says, “There is an internal drive or need for sexual fulfillment.”

In other words, even at age 85, some of our sexual spark plugs may still be ready to fire upon contact!

Posted in Romance & Sex