Seniors Have More Sex Than Ever

Posted by admin in Monday, July 14th 2008

When it comes to sex, grandparents they’re doing better today, suggests a recent Swedish research.

According to the study, the last quarter century has witnessed a dramatic increase in sexual frequency among people over age 70, whether married or unmarried. As an added bonus, today’s older adults (mostly women) say they are much more satisfied with their relationships that the previous generation, because they face less sexual dysfunction and feel more positive about the experience.

“Our study shows that a large majority of older adults believe sexual activity and sexual feelings as a natural part of life,” said study author Nils Beckman, doctoral candidate of the epidemiology unit of neuropsychiatric Institute of neuroscience and physiology at the University of Gothenburg. “So it’s important that health professionals and others take sexuality into account, regardless of age.”

The findings appear online in the journal British Medical Journal.

Beckman and his team reviewed surveys on sexual behavior and attitude that had been supplemented by more than 1500 residents of Gothenburg in more than 70 years who enjoyed good health for a period of 30 years.

The surveys were conducted in 1971-1972, 1976-1977, 1992-1993 and 2000-2001.

Between the first and the last survey, found that the frequency of sexual intercourse had increased among all groups. Among married men, 68 percent said being sexually active in the last survey, compared to 52 percent in 1971, while married women between the number increased from 38 to 56 percent.

Among the single men, the increase was from 30 to 54 percent in the same period of 30 years, while unmarried women are entering the observed increase was slightly less than 1 to 12 percent.

It seems that women achieved the greatest advances in terms of an increase in sexual satisfaction. While men expressed a more positive attitude towards sex in 1971, for 2001 the difference had evaporated.

In addition, more women of century XXI claimed to be highly satisfied with their sex, but claimed to have a low satisfaction, most said they experienced an orgasm during sex, and less assured never having had an orgasm.

Regarding the extent to which respondents reported feeling “very happy” about their relations, the trend of three decades showed a similarly positive direction for both sexes, from 40 to 57 percent among men and from 35 to 52 percent among women.

Beckman and colleagues speculated that, in part, the findings could simply reflect the degree to which Western societies have become accustomed to handle sexual issues in a frank and open, perhaps leading to a greater willingness to report honestly sexual encounters.

“(And) it might abandon a marriage is unhappy over permissible today,” Beckman suggested. “And even that widows and widowers engage in new relationships.”

Whatever the explanation, S. Jay Olshansky, a professor of public health and principal research scientist of the Centre of aging at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), said that the findings closely reflect the results of similar research carried out in the UIC and elsewhere.

“Probably, addressing problems with the physiological development of drugs such as Viagra explained, though not all, the growing trend in sexual activity”, he said. “But the most important point of all this is that when it comes to sex, age does not matter clearly. At least most men and many women want to have sex as they age.”

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