Study: Seniors having more sex than you think
CNN, August 24th, 2007
Many older Americans routinely engage in vaginal intercourse, oral sex
and masturbation, a landmark study into a long-taboo subject reported
Wednesday.
"From a societal perspective, I would say that old people are young
people later in life," said Dr. Stacy Tesler Lindau, lead author of the
federally funded study, which was published in the New England Journal
of Medicine.
Sexual activity reported among the 3,005 men and
women who participated in the survey did decrease with age,
particularly among the oldest participants -- from 73 percent among
those 57 to 64 years of age to 53 percent among those 65 to 74 years of
age to 26 percent among those 75 to 85 years of age.
Discussion of the sex habits of American seniors has received little attention, even from scientists.
"Hopefully, this opens the door for conversation that might counter
stereotypes," Lindau told reporters in a conference call. "If we regard
older people as asexual, particularly as physicians, we really miss an
opportunity to do important counseling and interventions for people who
may benefit from them."
Among the survey's many discoveries was
that about half of those 57 to 75 years of age who remained sexually
active reported engaging in oral sex.
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