Cold Bed Sheets: Abstinent Adults

Aug. 23, 2005 — -- "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" tops the box office this week, but the real phenomena of adults who have remained virgins or have stopped having sex is no laughing matter.

According to an ABC News poll, just 3 percent of adult Americans have never had sex, but there are many more adults who have stopped having sex for one reason or another.

Only 64 percent of adults are in an ongoing sexual relationship, so that means 36 percent either don't have access to sex or are avoiding it, according to Bethany Marshall, a psychoanalyst who specializes in relationship issues.

Marshall said some widowed and divorced adults consciously choose not to have sex until they remarry.

"It can be about suffering an extreme loss and waiting for someone valuable in your life again," Marshall said. "So not having sex can be very important, too."

But Marshall added there are single adults who have not had sex in years, but want to.

"For most of these people, sex leads to feelings of helplessness or being controlled or humiliated or rejected," Marshall said. "Sometimes women cut themselves off from their sexuality because they're afraid they'll only be thought of as a sexual object. They think if a man is attracted to them sexually, they won't be respected for their minds. These women become afraid to use their feminine charms."

Some married couples also stop having sex, using kids and lack of time as an excuse. But Marshall said anger is almost always at the root of the problem.

"If married couples stop having sex, I have found in 18 years of private practice that it's because someone is angry at their spouse," Marshall said. "It's often unconscious anger, but it kills the libido."

Marshall offered the following advice for people interested in starting a healthy sexual relationship: