Still close. (Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times)The sex lives of senior citizens have improved markedly in the past three decades, according to a new study.
The data, published in The British Medical Journal, have been collected since the 1970s from 1,500 Swedish adults, all of whom were 70 years old at the time of the interview. Although the report is from Sweden, it mirrors recent research in the United States that shows many people continue to have active sex lives well into old age.
But the Swedish data are notable in that they illuminate how people’s sex lives and attitudes have changed over time. Today’s seniors report that they are having sex far more often and have more positive feelings associated with sex than their counterparts just 30 years ago.
From 1971 to 2000 the proportion of 70-year-olds reporting sexual intercourse increased, although interestingly, more married men say they are having sex than married women. Among married men, 68 percent were having sex, compared to 52 percent in 1971. Among married women, 56 percent were having sex, compared to 38 percent in the 1970s.
Sexual activity also has increased for unmarried seniors. Among the single, 54 percent of the men and 12 percent of the women reported having sex, up from 30 percent of men and less than 1 percent of women in the 1970s.
Among those who were sexually active, more than one in four seniors in 2000 reported having sex once or more a week, compared to only about 10 percent in the 1970s.
More than half of men and women reported very happy relationships, compared to just more than one-third in the 1970s. Overall, modern 70-year-olds reported higher satisfaction with sexuality, fewer sexual dysfunctions and more positive attitudes to sexuality in later life than those who were interviewed in the 1970s.
The researchers noted that the study wasn’t designed to determine why seniors appear to be having more sex. However, the people interviewed in the 1970s were born at the turn of the century, at a time when sexuality and sexual pleasure were not discussed. The last generation of 70-year-olds interviewed for the study were in their 30s during the 1960s sexual revolution and may have had more liberal values about sex.
Modern 70-year-olds likely are more healthy as well. During the course of the study, life expectancy for Swedes jumped five years for men, to age 77, and four years for women, to age 82. Modern seniors also have access to medications like Viagra that earlier generations did not.
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From 1 to 25 of 93 Comments
Are more seniors having sex, or is it just that more seniors are willing to talk about it? As the article points out, we are the product of the sixties when discussions about sex were more acceptable.
— Mollyann TabachnikovUndoubtedly the effect of Viagra, etc is seen here! B
— Banu DanuAs a gay man in his 60’s with a very active and happy sex life w/his committed partner this is happy news for both of us. As to more married men reporting they are having sex than married woman perhaps the answer is: men having sex with men.
— MasonHow is it that more married men reported sexual activity than married women?
— martin deagostinoAnd what does it mean that 54 percent of unmarried men reported sexual activity, compared to just 12 percent of unmarried women?
Apparently, unmarried women who are sexually active must have more partners than the men … not that there’s anything wrong with it!
What kind of sex are these seniors having? The reason I ask is that many women over 60 say that intercourse is painful because their vaginal tissues have become thinner, less lubricated, and more sensitive. They say that while lubricants help to some degree, they don’t really solve the problem. So, are most of the senior women who are still having intercourse just gritting their teeth and bearing it? Or have many senior couples shifted to a greater emphasis on oral sex, in order to enjoy sexual intimacy without pain for the woman?
— Willie FarringtonThe fingers of the hand seen of the woman in the illustration appears to have 6 rings on them. Might not that be seen as a woman who has either had too much sex with too many husbands, or simply “notches on her gun” as the say.
— Gene BudayI wonder how many more rings might exist on her other hand and possibly her toes as well? Or may it indicate the number of old men she has sent to early graves with a smile on their faces.
There are a lot of prescription drugs not just Viagra and some OTC drugs that help too. As a Pharm. Tech. I see a lot of these prescriptions come through and it’s not always the male partner picking them up. They have also developed a female Viagra. I think now a days sex is something seniors do to say youthful in active. Funny thing about Viagra though is it was originally developed as a blood pressure medicine and in test group trials they noticed a side effect of erections in men. That’s just a fun fact to toss around though. I just hope I still get it when I’m 70+.
— RobDid anyone else notice the discrepancy between the percentage of senior men and women having sex?
Married men, 68 percent were having sex
Married women, 56 percent were having sex
12% difference
Single men, 54 percent
Single women, 12 percent
32% difference
I guess things never change.
When it comes to discussing sex, women are classier than men and single men are full of it!
— DROh Yeah, more sex. But, you gotta go to Sweden to get it.
— billI’d say better geriatric overall health is a factor wouldn’t you? My grandparents got separate bedrooms in their 50s despite being a very happily married couple. My grandfather had prostate trouble and had long periods of time when he’d have to get up 5 and 6 times a night or had a catheter as well as recovering from 2 heart attacks. It also made it easier to look after him when he was sick to have him in a single bed.
At the time I didn’t think anything of it. Now I realize and additional price of his illness. Since those things are better treated nowadays, I suspect fewer people are in their position.
— KateHurrah! More … uh … power to us!
— Glowing SeniorAre the seniors having sex married or single? Who’s having more sex, men or women? I think these types of articles are very encouraging but I always feel, when I look at my older women friends who are alone and who say that their male friends want women 15-25 years younger, that the complete story is isn’t being told - at least not in the US.
— macvee dahlWhen your in your 70’s and on a fixed income you can stay home and have all of the fun you can stand.
— BruceI wonder about the same thing #1 mentions, too, in ANY survey of sexual behavior that asks people to report on their own activity. In fact, I wonder about how accurate ANYTHING people say about their sex-lives is.
If a survey-taker, undoubtedly much younger than me, asked me about private details of my sex life, I’m pretty certain that I would claim to be doing whatever I thought the “acceptable” answer to each question was — in other words, I’d lie, at least sometimes. Out of embarrassment, modesty, pride, all sorts of things, people are very unlikely to give utterly factual answers to this sort of questionnaire.
After all, in the survey mentioned here, MORE married men claim to be having sex than married women. Okay, what does that mean?
It means that among the elderly people surveyed, either:
1) a number of the married men are being unfaithful to their wives, while NONE of the married women are being unfaithful to their husbands (or else a LOT of married men and only some married women are being unfaithful)
or
2) the married men are over-reporting how often they have sex
or
3) the married women are under-reporting how often they have sex
or (probably most likely)
4) a combination of 2 and 3 — underreporting by women, overreporting by men.
Cultural factors could kick in here — among people who are 70 now, the double standard which admires men for being sexually active but vilifies women for it would have been very much the culture of their formative years. So I think it’s only to be expected that men would claim to be more sexually active than they are and women would claim to be less so — even within marriage.
Another point: Viagra has not only given men the ability to be sexually active in their later years, it has also created an expectation that they SHOULD be. So I can easily imagine a 70-year-old man who has not had sex, or even tried to have sex, for years feeling “ashamed” to tell someone doing this survey that he’s given sex up entirely.
In short, I think this tells us very little about what seniors are actually doing in the bedroom now, OR about what they were actually doing in the bedroom in the 1970s. The survey tells us a lot about what people will now SAY about their sexual activity — but I’m very, very leery of assuming that what people say about sex gives us any accurate picture at all of what they do.
(Btw, I’m female, divorced, in a steady and happy relationship for 7 years now, 54 years old. Very happy — and I would not talk to anyone about my partner’s and my sex life.)
— kI had to laugh at the statistics showing such a big difference in the amount of senior men who say they are having sex vs the amount of senior women. It could be there is a big difference in perception as to what is “having sex”….
— Rachel CummingsNot just Viagra, but better circulatory health in general. 70 is just not that old if you have a healthy heart. At 70 you can still swim, play tennis(if you have the knees and shoulders), and the mind only gets dirtier. Why not have more sex? It better than being grumpy
— WilliamHere are two explanations and two possible solutions:
— John KleinFirst I have been told that men may be more willing to exaggerate on self report measures of sexuality than women. Surprised?
A second factor which may help to explain why more men than women report that they are having sex after 70 is changing demographics. As the ratio of females to males increases, there are more available senior women than the senior men can… accommodate even when physical capacities are augmented by recreational pharmaceuticals.
Perhaps younger men may be encouraged to step up. Alternately, we might outsource the problem to countries with more favorable female-to-male ratios.
I wonder how many older women are having sex when they really don’t want to? And when they really don’t want to report that they don’t want to? Even within a good marriage! I think many of these studies are flawed, because the truth is so often discarded in favor of what the researchers “want” to hear, especially when research is funded by the makers of …say…Viagra? I’d venture to say that most of the truth of women’s deep feelings about this issue is never known.
— Dianne GosnellIt would be informative to see a graph of the percentages over time. The ‘viagra’ bump will be clear.
I would predict that the trend will accelerate as it takes in the people who were in their teens and 20’s during the 60’s.
— chadlerThe male-female disparity may be due to the fact that senior males are married to younger (non-senior) females which did not fall into the scope of the study.
— GregoryI fail to see how seniors having more sex is the result of Viagra. Why do we define ’sex’ as only penetrative sex?
I’m having more sex. I learned late in life that sex for one (woman) is just fine, thank you. I spend time pleasuring myself, and do so with flare. Candles, relaxing music, scented oils and lotions. It’s multi-focal and almost never involves penetration. Although it sometimes involves a pedicure.
— NRI agree with Mollyann; I think old geezers are just more willing to talk about it. And yes, thanks to Viagra, Ciallis etc.
— DDAlso, not mentioned in the article is the effect of the direct marketing of medications used to treat erectile dysfunction and the comercialization of sexuality in general.
— FernandoI am 67 and my boyfriend is 59 and we have great, passionate sex at least once a week…that’s probably enough for both of us but we kiss deeply every day and touch each other at every opportunity. We are deeply in love and sex is a natural part of sharing our affection. I expect to be like this until I can’t. And, yes, Viagara has been a great help.
— Elextramy guess is that if one was to graph the huge decline in smoking in the last thirty years, especially for men, it would be the exact opposite to the increase in sexual activity
— John DuRose