Education - Aging

Aging

At least in terms of pure physical prowess-sex as athletic event a man usually reaches his sexual peak somewhere between 18 and 20. A woman tends to reach her sexual Everest considerably later, from her 30’s to her early 40’s. But where does that leave everyone who's any older than that ... languishing in some sexual lowland of dwindling desire? Not exactly!

Sex Goes On and On and On

It’s now known that while sexual response does undergo a variety of changes with age, it's also true that many men and women continue to enjoy a rich and satisfying sex life well past retirement. That may not sound like news to you, but at one time it was.

In the landmark studies of human sexuality done by the late Dr. Alfred Kinsey, his team reported that three-quarters of men over 80 are impotent - a finding that confirmed the commonly held belief that it's not only natural but right that the elderly are sweet, forgetful and sexless. But it turns out that in Dr. Kinsey's sample population, there were only three women and four men over 80. His conclusion was drawn from a grand total of four.

More recent studies of healthy residents of California retirement homes have shown that 62 percent of the men and 30 percent of the women over 80 reported recently having intercourse. (The figures for women would probably have been considerably higher if the ladies didn't outnumber the gents by six to one.) Perhaps more important, 87 percent of the men and 68 percent of the women reported recently having had some kind of physical intimacy with another person. No matter how old we get, few of us ever outgrow our need to touch and be touched.

It's foolish to think that aging has no effect on sexuality, but it's important to know and appreciate exactly what those effects are.

The Aging Woman

One of the most noticeable changes in the aging woman's sexual response is a decrease in vaginal wetness during sexual arousal. As a noticeable and measurable reaction, vaginal wetness is considered to be the female counterpart of the man's erection. Both the rate of production of these lubricating fluids and the volume produced decline as a woman gets older. The resulting dryness, which can cause discomfort for both partners during intercourse, can usually be remedied by using a water-based lubricating cream such as any found in our lube department.

With age, the walls of the vagina also gradually lose some of their elasticity. Many older women say their orgasms seem to come later, don't last quite as long and are less intense than they once were. Still, unlike men, women's "recovery" period between orgasms doesn't change. A sexually active woman in her sixties or seventies is just as capable of multiple orgasms as a woman in her twenties. But because her sexual responses have slowed, she and her partner will probably need to spend more time in foreplay before she's lubricated enough for intercourse.

Most women know that after menopause, their bodies dramatically slow the production of estrogen. This hormonal shift usually results in a number of changes in the body, including gradual atrophy of the vagina and a decline in vaginal lubrication. But many women don't realize that these changes are gradual and that they usually begin before menopause, often showing up as episodes of vaginal dryness that come and go as the body's estrogen levels fluctuate during their gradual decline, says Gloria A. Bachmann, M.D., associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Providence, New Jersey.

Given the dizzying complexity of any human relationship, this minor physiological difficulty can sometimes add a few distressing new twists to a love knot, Dr. Bachmann says. Some older women may wrongly conclude that their lack of wetness during arousal is caused by a deep, dark problem in the relationship. Some men may conclude that their partner's vaginal dryness may mean she hasn't been stimulated enough, or even that she's not turned on at all anymore. Vaginal dryness is a sign of aging, not the end of love. Partners need to talk about it.

Maintaining the Flow

Estrogen replacement therapy can help maintain a postmenopausal woman's vaginal lubrication. Often, though, women are not informed by their doctors that the medications generally take about 4 to 6 months to work, and in some cases as long as 18 months to two years. (There are some health risks and considerations you should know about before taking estrogen. For more information please contact your doctor.")

There's no evidence that menopause results in loss of sexual desire; in fact, in some cases, it may even result in increased desire. Perhaps partly because they're finally free of the fear of pregnancy, perhaps because they feel greater personal freedom after their children have flown from the nest, some postmenopausal women pass into a sort of delightful sexual renaissance. William Masters, M.D., and Virginia Johnson, of the Masters and Johnson Institute in St. Louis, have taken pains to point out that even though a woman may be getting older, "the sensual pleasure derived from sex usually continues unabated."

The Aging Man

As teenagers, men can generally get an erection in the time it takes to lick a stamp. But as they age, achieving a full, firm erection takes longer and may sometimes require a little manual help from a partner. In a study at the University

of Southern California, for instance, researchers showed the same sexy movie to two groups of men, one group aged 19 to 30 and the other, 48 to 65. The younger group got erections almost six times faster than the older group.

With age, there's also a gradual increase in the recovery time between ejaculations (the amount of time it takes to be able to have a second erection after the first one fades).

"An 18-year-old man can climax up to eight times in 24 hours; when they're 35, once every 24 hours is more the norm," says Virginia Saddock, M.D., director of the Graduate Education Program in Human Sexuality at the New York University Medical Center in New York City.

There's also a gradual decline in the expulsive pressure and the volume of semen that's expelled during ejaculation. The aging male may notice something else, too: More and more, as his arousal nears climax, he no longer feels the unstoppable urge to ejaculate. Perhaps once out of every three or four times he has intercourse, he simply lets it go without climaxing. Consider it a prerogative of age.

He has fewer morning erections as he gets older, too. And he is likely to have sex less frequently. Dr. Kinsey reported that married men between 31 and 35 average about two orgasms a week (whether by intercourse or masturbation); men between 56 and 60 average about two a month.

As he ages, a man's testosterone levels also begin to decline, but very gradually - and that doesn't seem to be what causes his gradual decline in sexual desire. In fact, men who have gotten experimental injections of testosterone have a few more sexual fantasies, but the hormones don't produce any startling blast of libidinous desire, nor do they enhance the ability to produce an erection. When testosterone levels in an aging man are subnormal, however, injections may prove helpful.

The Plus Side of the Score Sheet

All of this may sound like a catalog of unmitigated mortal decline, but it doesn't have to be. After all, as a man's sexual responses begin to throttle down with age, he finds it easier to last longer before ejaculation and therefore easier to satisfy his lover. At the same time, his mate is inclined to require more foreplay before she's sufficiently lubricated for entry.

The dalliance of age can make for sex that’s all the sweeter for being slower. Says Paul A. Fleming, M.D., former editor of the newsletter Sex after Forty: "You may not be able to have sex three times in an hour, but you'll be better equipped to do it once and make it last an hour. So much for the myth of sexual decline!"

It was once thought that the physiological changes wrought by age were entirely inevitable; as you got older, you started falling apart, and that was that. But it's now known that many of those creaks, rattles and groans are the result not of mere age but of ill health or inactivity. And the same principle applies to a person's sexual life.

In one survey of 225 older men, chronic illness and poor health turned out to be practically as significant a cause of sexual decline as aging itself. In fact, the middle-aged men in this study (median age: 59) who considered themselves "in poor health" compared with other men their age were 6 times as likely as healthy men to be having some kind of sexual difficulty. Among men over 75, the connection was even more dramatic: Poor health made them 40 times more likely to be having sexual problems.

Pleasure Lasts

By contrast, people who keep themselves physically fit and sexually active can go on enjoying the sweet feast of satisfying sex almost to the very end of their lives.

For instance, one study of 160 male Master swimmers between the ages of 40 and 80 showed a strong correlation between vigorous physical conditioning and sexual frequency and pleasure. These robust men, hungry for life and pleasure, reported a frequency of intercourse similar to that of men 20 to 40 years their junior.

Another study of 800 men and women ranging in age from 60 to 91 revealed that most people over 60 are very interested in sex. Most say that they enjoy sex as much as they did when they were younger-in fact, most say that they enjoy it even more. One 72-year-old woman told gerontological researchers Bernard Starr, Ph.D., and Marcella Weinter, Ed.D.: "Our sex is so much more relaxed, I know my body better, and we know each other better. Sex is unhurried and the best in our lives!"