Sex Still Sizzles Into 60s
Sex need not end in the older years for healthy adults, researchers say.
March 3, 2010— -- Thirty-somethings can expect to enjoy at least another 30 years of sex, researchers have found.
At age 30, men will be sexually active for another 35 years, while women will be active for another 30, Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau and Natalia Gavrilova of the University of Chicago reported online in the British Medical Journal.
The results are even better for fifty-somethings: "At age 55, most folks can expect 10 to 15 more years of sexually active life," Tessler Lindau told MedPage Today. That's 15 years for men, and 10 for women.
The researchers also found that people who were healthier reported more and better sex.
Men appear to have more sex for a greater part of their lives, Tessler Lindau said, because women tend to live longer than men, thus outliving their marriages.
"A big proportion of the differences in sexually active life expectancy between men and women is the availability of a partner," she said.
The data come from an assessment of two U.S. population studies: the national survey of midlife development in the United States 1995-1996 (MIDUS) and the national social life, health, and aging project 2005-2006 (NSHARP).
Together, the studies assembled information on 6,037 patients, ranging in age from 25 to 85.
The report "gives us, for the first time, a way of summarizing and comparing population health with respect to sexuality," Tessler Lindau said.
She and Gavrilova found that overall, men were more likely to be sexually active, report a quality sex life, and to be interested in sex.
Those gender differences were greatest among the 75- to 85-year-olds:
