By ABBY TALLMER
This month’s Thrive, as you already know, has the core theme of lifelong learning. Since recent scientific developments have also pushed this topic to the forefront of our nation’s media (well, for at least a day or two), I’m devoting the entirety of this column to that vital yet largely under-addressed aspect of human experience about which all of us could use more education and lifelong learning: namely, sexuality, specifically the sexual lives, health, concerns, and practices of America’s senior population.
To some, sex may seem like a bizarre or illogical choice of themes for a column in a publication that caters to 50+ers. After all, what is there to say? Sadly, many of us (even those of us who fall into the “mature adult” category) have been indoctrinated from puberty to believe that once we reach a certain age we cease to exist sexually; thus sexuality is widely perceived as no longer relevant to the lives of American seniors.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Here’s some breaking news: The widely assumed myth of senior asexuality has just been officially, successfully, and powerfully debunked by the results of a federally funded study on the sexual lives, habits, and health of old folks that took most Americans -- journalists, scientists, medical professionals, and everyone else – by surprise. Everyone else except our sexually active seniors themselves.
This past August 22 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released one of the dozen or so press releases that it routinely generates daily. If you were unaware that the NIH regularly churns out such a volume of data, you are not alone; more often than not, these (let’s face it, usually dull) releases announcing the results of thus and such study or summarizing this and that new scientific publication land in the garbage can rather than across your computer screen. August 22 was an exception. That day one of the NIH press releases carried information that was immediately picked up as headline news by nearly all the major outlets and wire services – the results of a study of the sex lives, habits, and sexual concerns of older Americans, a topic which (amazingly) had never been thoroughly researched before.
The big surprise? “A majority of older Americans” – late 50s and beyond – “are sexually active and view intimacy as an important part of life …” The study also found that “… when asked, many older people want to talk about this part of their lives” – a fact of life also apparently surprising to researchers and certainly (as seen from the coverage of the study in the media) a bombshell for the non-senior, non-scientist American public. The NIH study also broke down senior sexual activity in remarkable detail in terms of frequency of activity and type of activity, aspects that were greeted with shock if not horror by press and TV.
Let’s sample some of the coverage, shall we?
From the HealthDay wire service as featured on the Yahoo news site: “Many Older Americans Have Active Sex Lives” blared the headline, with the text continuing and extrapolating as follows:
“Many older Americans aren’t letting age slow down their sex lives, a new study shows. The first comprehensive national survey of the sexual attitudes, behaviors, and problems of U.S. adults age 57 and older finds many are having sex often. In fact, the frequency of sexual activity dropped only slightly between the late 50s up to the early 70s. And more than half of those in the oldest age group --75 to 85 -- who were sexually active reported having sex at least two to three times per month, and 23 percent reported having sex at least once a week.”
HealthDay at least pretended to take the information in stride. Not so for some other outlets. “Old Folk are still having sex” announced the AFP — a French wire service! — which went on to tell us that “half of those surveyed up to [age] 75 admitted [my italics] to having oral sex.” and “more than half of men and a quarter of women admitted [again, italics mine] masturbating.” This phraseology is rather reminiscent of calling someone an “admitted homosexual.” carrying with it the implication that any decent sort of human being would never ever admit to such a practice.
Some news agencies threw all premise of neutrality out the window. CBS News/AP, usually trusted purveyors of solid, unbiased information, led with this first paragraph in their first wire story on the groundbreaking survey:
“An unprecedented study of sex and seniors finds that many older people are surprisingly frisky – willing to do, and talk about, intimate acts that would make their grandchildren blush.
“That may be too much information for some folks.”
And what was this blush-inducing information that CBS/AP warned us might scare the horses? Not simply the fact that seniors are having sex and enjoying it, not simply that sexual concerns matter to the lives of seniors, not even that some “admitted” to practicing masturbation -- no, it was the news that “more than half of those aged 57 to 75 said they gave or received oral sex, as did about a third of 75-to-85-year-olds”; a shocker that sent CBS/AP over the edge and caused the joint news services to warn their readers.
If you think that perhaps you detect a little ageism in these responses, you are not alone. Of the dozens of stories on the survey, only a few (notably the NIH press release and the New England Journal of Medicine, which published the entire study results), and some isolated scientists and researchers could get past their squeamishness to laud the study as important and long in the making, and its results a cause for optimism rather than discomfort. “Bravo that the New England Journal of Medicine is publishing something like that. It’s about time” said everybody’s friend and pro-sex advocate, Dr. Ruth. Richard Suzman, director of National Institutes of Aging’s Behavioral and Social Research Program, was a bit more circumspect in his remarks but positive nonetheless: “This study breaks new ground in social and behavioral research,” he opined. “Its portrait of this aspect of older American’s lives suggests a previously uncharacterized vitality and interest in sexuality that carries well into advanced age, which perhaps has not been appreciated as an important part of life.” To say the least.
For the NIH press release summarizing the study, go to: http://www.nia.nih.gov/NewsAndEvents/PressReleases/PR20070823sexlives.htm
For the full study results, you’ll have to buy the August 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, but you can read an abstract or summary of the article at: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/357/8/762
For some of the coverage of the study — balanced or heinous — simply Google “seniors and sex” and “August 2007 New England Journal of Medicine,” or try the search “senior sex survey” and “August 2007”. Last but certainly not least, if you’d like some non-ageist, empowering, sex-positive information and materials on senior sexuality, you’d do yourself a disservice if you didn’t log on to the following sites:
For an article on “Sex and Aging” from a wonderful group called the Sexual Health Information Center:
http://www.sexhealth.org/sexaging/index.shtml
For a lengthy (and I mean lengthy) article on “Sexual Issues for Aging Adults” featuring a thorough bibliography, much of it readily available through hyperlinks:
http://www.depts.ttu.edu/hs/sexuality&aging/
Happy reading, and keep up the good work. Let’s shock ’em even more next time around.
