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Sexual Revolution 1 of 3

Sexual Revolution 1 of 3
 
 
It is not a topic easy to avoid. Sex and aging appears in one formulation or another, month after month, on the covers of magazines about men's health, women's health, and healthy aging. In case you haven't noticed, the sexy women featured on those covers are in their 40s, 50s, or even 60s. What editor can buck the coercive demographics? The older the age group, the more rapidly it is growing, with first prize to those over 85. And they are having sex.
 
Studies of sexual activity among older Americans are mostly recent—and few. But one big survey found that about three-fourths of Americans 57 to 64 reported being sexually active. Half of those 65 to 74 reported being active and one quarter of those 75 to 85. Women reported themselves less sexually active than men, partly because their male partners die before them and partly for other reasons that we will explore.
 
But why all this activity after all, there are few stereotypes more pervasive than that sex between sagging, wrinkled, bald, age-spotted, dried-up men and women is almost too revolting to contemplate. Some women in Florida retirement communities getting dolled up for an evening of seduction come out and say we horny old babes; it gets a laugh, though it is only mildly politically incorrect. For older men longing for young women, or for any sex at all, the descriptor dirty old man lies in wait as surely as any racial or ethnic slur.
 
With my seventy-fifth birthday upon me, I am a dirty old man, but people have been saying that or implying it for years. Others have treated my sexual interest as humorous, perhaps cute, and developed little nicknames for it 'the naked poet. Fortunately, I do not have any of the sexual problems discussed in this write, but I do attend weekly meetings of our local chapter of Chronic Liars Anonymous.
 
The Rap on Sex and Aging
 
If you have read any articles on 'sex and aging,' or Google it, or go to prestige medical-information sites like the Mayo Clinic or the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, you will discover that the topics covered, answers, and even specific language are almost identical. Then, if you visit the Web site of the National Institute on Aging (NIA), you will understand why. To tackle this sensitive topic, but remain on safe ground, other Web sites simply download what NIA says. It is possible that NIA, too, is derivative, but if so I have not discovered the mother lode.  
 
Here is the party line: Sex in older age is healthy and desirable; reject stereotypes usually no examples are given; adapt to your limitations; be aware of chronic illnesses or medications that compromise sexual function; and, above all, communicate with your partner.
 
The commonest problem of older women is a dry vagina, because the vagina shortens, tightens, and loses some elasticity with age. It would seem a no-brainer, but a small percentage of women take the simple step of obtaining a lubricant. Interestingly, the highlight of the action, their clitoris, becomes more sensitive with age.
 
Still talking about women, the chief psychological obstacle to sexual pleasure purportedly is body image. Women who spend their lives enhancing, preserving, and displaying their physical attractiveness cannot believe that their older body is attractive to men. Some men may view their lady friends, as I do, as remarkably attractive at 65, but find that their lady friends simply cannot credit the sincerity of the compliment.
 
For women, another frequent 'psychological' complaint, especially after menopause, is lack of interest in sex, a weak libido. The usual prescription is estrogen supplements, taken daily, or, more conveniently, as a small patch on the belly to dispense the drug over a longer period. When this doesn't do the trick, the woman's doctor may prescribe testosterone, the 'male' drug, but side effects are a problem.
 
For men, the stand-out difficulty is erection and, again, the solution seems a no-brainer; but a minority of men with this complaint use, say, Viagra. In the survey mentioned above, about a third of men admitted to erectile dysfunction, but only 14 percent were taking a medication for it. One barrier, it seems, is admitting to your physician that you 'can't get it up.' And so no prescription Referring again to the survey cited above, only 40 percent of men, and half as many women, reported ever discussing sex with their physician after age 50. I hope I am reinforcing my point about stigma and taboo.
 
I discovered recently that the prescription drug purveyors in Canada do not require a prescription from your side.  
 
Just fill out a brief information form and, as they tell it, they will submit this to a physician, who will ascertain if the drug is appropriate for you, issue a prescription, and your Viagra, or whatever, at less than a buck a pill versus $10 a pill at your local pharmacy will arrive from India.
 
Viagra, one marketing name for Sidenafil a multi-billion-dollar home run for Pfizer, takes advantage of a crucial detail of the erectile process. Erection is a hydraulic system, a blood pump. Nitric oxide, a common and long-known chemical, binds to a certain receptor in the penis, which produces another chemical product that causes smooth-muscle relaxation of the arteries. Relaxation sounds counter-erection, but no; the relaxation causes the artery to dilate, enlarge, and more blood flows into the penis to pump up the erection. The three heroes who discovered this mechanism, all men, won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1998. Perhaps the committee ought to have added the Peace Prize.
 
But the story is not over. The enzyme that permits the increased blood flow, and thus the erection, is counteracted by another enzyme that degrades smooth-muscle relaxation and reduces blood flow. The special job of Sidenafil is to inhibit the action of that degrading enzyme, so that the arteries stay relaxed, blood flow continues, the erection flourishes, and the fun goes on. Without sexual stimulation, which activates the blood-flow system in the first place, Sidenafil should not cause an erection. Recall that its specialty is inhibiting the degradation of the erection enzyme.
 
Being the standard rap on sex and aging on the NIA, Web site. Moves on to illnesses and medications that may, underlie a sexual dysfunction. There are chronic illnesses cited as problems; some, such as arthritis or stroke, inhibit sex because they compromise all movement. I refer you to the NIA site.
 
Men and women who deem themselves healthy and active because their medical condition is fully treated may find that the medication is the problem. I take medication for high blood pressure; it reduces the force of blood flow hypertension and blood flow is the key to erection. A medication to relax the bladder for easier urine flow has the same effect. Other drugs reduce ejaculation or force the ejaculate back into the bladder; in women, some drugs worsen vaginal dryness or loss of libido. More information is readily available on the NIA Web site.
 
What intrigues me is the yawning gulf between older men and women who more or less accept the passing of their sex life, often as early as their 50s--or its decline into an occasional session with an uninspired mate--and those imaginative and determined individuals who pursue sexual excitement into their 70s and beyond--excitement that remains for the rest of us a memory and a fantasy. I cannot forget watching a rather short, overweight albeit well endowed man in his late 70s, a highly successful writer, standing naked on his dining room table with three lovely nude young women around it to support him, giggling with delight, as he changed a light bulb. He had arranged his later life to make such scenes common.
 
So Who Is Still Doing It?
 
The Kinsey Institute, scandalous and almost alone in its reports 60 years ago, continues today to provide research results and statistics on every imaginable aspect of sexual behavior. Although it conducts its own research, the comprehensive statistical profile it offers on its Web site is an interpretation of the mountains of data from the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior and other studies. Surveys differ in their results. For comparison's sake, see the 1999 survey conducted by Modern Maturity and the AARP Foundation.
 
The survey tells us, for example, that beginning at age 50, two-thirds of single men report having had no vaginal intercourse over the past year. Starting at age 60, that goes up to almost 90 percent. Almost three-quarters of single women as early as their 30s report no vaginal sex over the past year. In their 50's and 60's, 85 percent report no vaginal sex over the past year.
 
Among married men in their 40s, fewer than 10 percent report no vaginal sex over the past year. By their 50s, 21 percent report no vaginal sex over the past year and in their 60s the number is 34 percent. In their 70s, the last decade reported, 54 percent of married men say they had no vaginal sex over the past year.
 
Among married women in their 40's, fewer than 10 percent report no vaginal sex over the past year. By their 50s, 20 percent report no vaginal sex over the past year and in their 60s that rises to 38 percent. In their 70s, 54 percent of married women say they had no vaginal sex over the past year.
 
I should note that I have cited only one category of reported sexual frequency--those who report no sex over the past year. I wanted to convey a picture of how many people as early as their 40s and 50's have no sex with a partner, or no vaginal sex. For single men and women that is the great majority—with 70 percent of single women and 40 percent of single men having no sexual intercourse starting in their 30s.
 
Specifically on the matter of sex and aging, these charts indicate that during the decade of their 70s, sexual intercourse is nonexistent among single women. And their 60s are not much better, with fewer than 10 percent 'getting any.' For married women, the situation is better (assuming more sex is better), but even infrequent sex in their 60s and 70s is reported by far less than half of them.
 
For single men, the situation is better, with more than half was having at least very occasional intercourse in their 40s and a third having at least very occasional intercourse in their 50s. The figures for married men square with those for married women (indicating that infidelity is not a factor, or an equal factor for both sexes, or not reported to poll takers even as part of an overall percentage).
 
To sum up, when we talk about active sex in older years we are talking about minorities of older men and women. By their 60s, some three-quarters of men and women still are having some sexual intercourse (with the notable exception of single women, who are virtually finished with sex when they enter their 50s), but most of them only once or twice a month or less. And that is in their sixties!
 
 
 
By nutbuster
Written by nutbuster (D C)
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