Elderly assert sex still a fact of life

Denise Gellene, Los Angeles

August 24, 2007

SEX doesn't stop at age 60, 70, 80 or beyond, according to a report that found many Americans stayed surprisingly frisky well into old age.

The study of 3005 adults aged 57 to 85 found most had an active sex life with a partner or spouse. More than half of sexually active older adults had sex two to three times a month — the same frequency reported among younger adults in a 1992 national survey.

The report found passions cooled as people aged, but said the declining interest in sex couldn't be attributed to age alone.

An acute shortage of older men prevented many women in their 70s and 80s from hooking up.

Participants in the study were considered sexually active if they had had any sort of sexual contact with someone else in the preceding 12 months.

Researchers said they hoped the findings would dispel commonly held notions that sex was the province of the young.

"Older people are just younger people later in life," said lead author Dr Stacy Tessler Lindau, a gynaecologist at the University of Chicago.

Dr Lindau cautioned that the study was not meant to set a standard for normal sexual behaviour that older people should feel compelled to reach. "Certainly many people make a choice not to be sexually active," she said.

In the study, nearly three-quarters of adults aged 57 to 64 were sexually active compared with about a quarter of adults aged 75 to 85. About half of adults aged 65 to 74 were sexually active.

Differing life spans created a "lack of opportunity" for women, Dr Lindau said. At 64, there were eight men for every 10 women. By 85, there were four men for every 10 women.

Diabetes was associated with reduced sexual activity, particularly in women. Sexual behaviour was unaffected by arthritis and high blood pressure.

Men and women differed sharply on the importance of sex; 35 per cent of women rated sex as "not at all important" compared with 13 per cent of men.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

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