For those of us of a certain age, this isn’t new information. Our sex lives have hummed along well enough, thank you very much, thanks to our many years of experience. We suspect that once the youngsters are done feeling icky about the idea that Grandma and Grandpa do it, they’ll be relieved to know their sex life doesn’t have to have a shelf life.
New research at the University of Manchester found that adults are having sex well into their 70s and 80s, and they’re not too shy to talk about it. Only 3% of the 7,000 respondents declined to answer questions about their sex lives.
•31% of men and 20% of women in their 70s and 80s reported they were still kissing, hugging and messing around with their partners.•54% of men and 31% of women over age 70 reported they were still sexually active, with a third saying they have sex at least twice a month.
About half of the adults who took part in the study reported that at least one sexual problem was slowing them down
These figures complement earlier research in The New England Journal of Medicine that surveyed 3,005 men and women, between the ages of 57 and 85 and living in the US, about their sex lives. It found that the majority of older adults who were married or had intimate partners remained sexually active well into their 80s. In general, sexual activity tended to decline with age, but a significant number of men and women reported engaging in intercourse, oral sex and masturbation even in their eighth and ninth decades.
•More than half of those aged 57 to 75, and a third of the 75-to-85-year-olds, said they gave or received oral sex.•52% of men and 25% of women reported they masturbated, regardless of whether they had a partner.
Such statistics give us hope for good years to come, but why aren’t more people having great sex later in life? The research shows that many older adults just aren’t into it anymore. Women are more likely than men to report a lack of desire as the primary reason they’re not pursuing sex. Still, researchers have determined that when partners discontinue having sex, it’s usually because the male partner’s health got in the way.
For men, that included erectile dysfunction, climaxing too quickly or inability to climax, and performance anxiety. For women, it was low interest in sex, lack of lubrication, inability to climax and pain. The worse a person’s health was, the more problems they reported.
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