Studies show ageing doesn’t diminish sex drive
Virgil:
August 23rd, 2007
A recent survey conducted in the US of three thousand people aged 57 to 85 has revealed that a significant number of 70 and 80-year-olds maintain an active sex life. Whilst the common view on the subject seems to be that the older you get, the less sex drive you have, the study revealed that the most common barriers to intimacy were simply not having a partner at all or being too unhealthy; a lack of desire was generally not the problem.
The study, maybe somewhat surprisingly for younger readers, found that three-quarters of people in their late fifties and early sixties were still having sex, whilst this figure dropped to a half for the early seventies, and a quarter for the early eighties. Leader of the study, Stacy Lindau, comments on the findings, saying:
“This suggests that, among older adults, there is an internal drive or need for sexual fulfilment. People are living longer. Many people have higher expectations for what ageing should be like … yet we have no baseline data on sexuality in later life. These data will give people a sense of whether what they’re experiencing is typical.”
Indeed, half of the people surveyed described their sex problems as “bothersome”, bringing to light just how important that aspect of life is even as you grow older. Of those surveyed, the ones who rated their health as worse were also less likely to be intimate, demonstrating how important health is in maintaining that kind of physical relationship. Professor Edward Laumann of the University of Chicago, who co-authored the report, notes that:
“There are a lot of people who feel that age is very tightly correlated with sexual activity or interest, but it turns out that healthy people are sexually active if they have a partner, and that this is an important part of the quality of life.”
The study sheds some light on an area perhaps taboo, and brings with it a better perspective on the world of sexual relations, regardless of one’s age.