OLDER WOMEN TALK ABOUT SEX

by Beverly Johnson, Ph.D. RN
These are the words of an 83-year-old widow: "Physical satisfaction is not the only aim of sex...it is the nearness of someone throughout the lonely nights of people in their 70s and 80s. We need someone to hold, hug and confide in."
A married woman age 57 said: "I believe sex is a wonderful outlet for love and physical health. It's worth trying to keep alive in advancing age... it makes one feel youthful and close to one's mate."
A different story is told by a married 64-year-old woman: "Now that I approach retiring age, seems I am constantly compared by my spouse to other younger and attractive women... I have always been affectionate and supportive... I feel undesired."
These are a few of the words of more than 600 women age 50 and older who participated in a survey of women on sexuality and aging.
When I was an assistant professor of nursing at the University of Vermont, I invited readers of AARP's "Modern Maturity" who were age 50 and older to participate in my study of older adults' sexuality. I asked the readers to complete surveys on such topics as health, sense of self worth, intimate relationships, and attitudes. To encourage the participants to be as open and honest as possible, I asked them not to sign their names to the questionnaires.
I also invited the participants to describe their degree of interest, participation and satisfaction for a variety of sexual activities such as sitting and holding hands to reading or looking at erotic materials to saying, "I love (or like) you" to more physically intimate activities such as kissing, hugging, intercourse, masturbation and oral sex. I wanted to explore sexuality in older adults from a broad perspective and not just equate sexuality with sex or sexual behaviors.
Studies looking at sexuality in this age group are especially significant as society has often seen older adults as sexually uninterested, uninteresting and incapable. An earlier study of contemporary adult sexual behavior by University of Chicago researchers only included adults between the ages of 18 and 59. The researchers used this upper age limit since they found previous research had shown both the amount and variety of sexual behaviors declined with age. Financial constraints of the study also led them to reduce the upper age limit from age 65 to age 59.
My study, then, intentionally examined women older ranges, and included items to provide a view of older female sexuality, beyond frequency and type of sexual behaviors. I also sought to include other aspects of oneself, such as self-esteem and intimacy.
How did these older women describe themselves?
Nearly one-half of the women were married, while one-third were widowed. Three quarters of the women were satisfied with their lives in general. Their health status reports indicated that 40 percent had had a hysterectomy, while their most common health problems were arthritis and high blood pressure. Eighty five percent of the women described their health as good.
I also found that women saw themselves from a positive self view and as participants in intimate relationships (41 percent described their spouse as the person to whom they were most close while 33 percent said such a person was a friend). For example, 90 percent of the women reported, "I feel I have a number of good qualities," and "I take a positive attitude toward myself." Half of the women said their closest relationship provided sexual satisfaction while over 80 percent described their intimate partner as physically attractive, and both partners had a strong emotional attraction for each other.
Women also described themselves as knowledgeable about sexuality and aging and liberal in their sexual attitudes. They knew physical changes in sexual function were associated with aging and 85 percent said older adults continue their sexual interest and activity well into old age if they are healthy. Furthermore, 90 percent believed sex was not just for the young, that late life romances are good, that and sexuality continues throughout life.
In this study women described their sexual interest, participation, and satisfaction in various sexual activities:
At least 50 percent reported being very interested, active in, and satisfied with activities such as sitting next to someone and talking, making oneself more attractive, hearing or saying "I love (or like) you," kissing, hugging, and caressing.
Two-thirds of the women said they were "very interested" in sexual intercourse.
Fifty percent or less said they participated "very often" in sexual intercourse.
Sexual activities for which one-third of the women or less expressed being, "very interested, active in, and satisfied with" included talking about sexuality, reading or watching erotic materials, daydreaming about sex, masturbation and oral sex.
Compared to their younger years, only 35 percent of the women said their present sexual interest had decreased.
Fifty-six percent of the women said their sexual participation had decreased
Thirty-eight percent said overall sexual satisfaction had decreased. These facets of sexual behaviors do continue for this group of older women!
For this group of older women, I concluded that greater levels of sexual interest, participation and, greater levels of satisfaction characterized those women who saw themselves in a positive light, had intimate relationships and had liberal sexual attitudes. Although the results of this study can't be generalized to the population of older U.S. women because the women had volunteered to participate rather than being randomly selected, the results do describe a view of positive and continuing sexuality of community-based older women.

Good Sex is Good for You!

"Life without love is like a coconut in which the milk is dried up." Henry David Thoreau
"Good sex....Improves our health and may even contribute to our longevity."
Scientific evidence is accumulating support what many of us have suspected all along: good sex not only adds great enjoyment to our lives, but it also actually improves our health and may even contribute to our longevity.
In a new book called Sexual Healing, Dr. Paul Pearsall, Director of Behavioral Medicine at Detroit's Beaumont Hospital, writes that the joys and pleasures of living life and loving may provide us with something called an "intimacy inoculation" that actually protects us from disease.
Dr. Pearsall, who cites numerous other researchers, concludes, "Growing numbers of physicians now recognize that the health of the human heart depends not only on such factors as genetics, diet, and exercise, but also --to a large extent-- on the social and emotional health of the individual."
Sexual healing is achieved primarily through the daily challenge of maintaining a close, intimate relationship which, when accomplished, leads to balance between our health and healing systems.
Can lack of sexual intimacy create a risk factor for certain diseases? Dr. Pearsall cites research and his own clinical experience ndicating that sexual dissatisfaction seems to be prevalent prior to a heart attack in a high percentage of persons. Conversely, sexual contentment appears related to less severe migraine headaches, fewer and less-severe symptoms of premenstrual syndrome for women, and a reduction in symptoms related to chronic arthritis for both genders.
Although the exact biological mechanisms are not yet identified, many researchers are investigating how our thoughts, feelings, brain, immune system and sexual/genital system interact, influence each other, and affect our health. There may be an actual biological drive toward closeness, intimacy, and being connected to other human beings.
When we experience intimate, mutually caring sexual intimacy, we may experience a measurable change in neurochemicals and hormones that pour through the body and help promote health and healing.
"Hormones that pour through the body help promote health and healing."
Does this mean that to live longer or be more healthy we just need to DO IT more often or better? Of course not! Sex is a much broader concept that genital connecting or having an orgasm. Psychologist and author Gina Ogden, Ph.D. notes in her book, "Women Who Love Sex", that sex has everything to do with openness, connection to and bonding with a partner, feelings about what is happening to us, and memories. For those who love it, sex permeates their lives and is not merely a specialized, time-intensive, physical activity that takes place under the covers--as quickly as possible.
As a result of interviewing many women, Dr. Ogden learned that sexual desire, or lust, was produced by much more than physical stimulation. For women, according to Dr.Ogden, it has more to do with feelings of connectedness in their relationships: "Heart to heart, soul to soul, even mind to mind."
"For women, it has to do with feelings of connectedness in their relationships."
When discussing sexual connecting, Dr. Ogden's interviewees spoke of a FLOWING CONTINUUM OF PLEASURE, ORGASM, AND ECSTASY, rather than a one-time experience. They also described peak sexual experiences as coming from stimulation all over their bodies--not just from their genitals--including fingers, toes, hips, lips, neck, and earlobes.
Obviously, arousal and satisfaction evolve not only from receiving sexual energy, but also from the joy of stimulating one's partner. Sex, then, is a commitment of give and take.
Finally, the women Dr. Ogden studied have their own concepts of safe sex, essential to experiencing sexual pleasure and ecstasy. This kind of safe sex does NOT relate to preventing STDs or pregnancy; it relates, instead, to emotional and spiritual safety. Such safety is CRUCIAL for sexual closeness. Most of the women insisted that warm, loving connections with themselves and with their partners were essential to and inseparable from the experience of sexual ecstasy.
When people feel deeply close while merely holding hands, they are having sex. When people display caring for each other through hugs, caresses, and kissing, they are also having sex. When connecting people in a crowded room wink at each other in their own secret way, they are communicating sex to each other; such non-contact sex can be excitedly arousing and emotionally fulfilling. And, of course, during sexual union when the sky seems to open so a lightning bolt can strike the couple--while fireworks ignite and the earth stops spinning-- this is sex, too.
But wait. Do men also need this almost spiritual connection to enjoy sex and achieve good health? Well, yes and no. Men need sex and men need emotional connection, but many men don't necessarily need to put the two together!
According to Dr. Bernie Zilbergelt, who wrote The New Male Sexuality, sex for women is intertwined with personal connection. For some men , sex is unto itself--an act to be engaged in with or without love, with or without commitment, with or without connection.
Presently, younger boys are being socialized in a more enlightened manner; consequently, male attitudes toward sexual union are changing. But,unfortunately, the socialization of many men born in or before the 60's provided very little information of value to the formation and maintenance of intimate relationships. These men were taught, as youths, that males showed love by doing, not by talking or "connecting" with girls.
"Fortunately, anyone can...restore closeness, intimacy, and sexual flow."
Older men were usually also socialized to be strong and self-reliant, which usually means one doesn't easily talk about or admit personal problems. Many such men do not acknowledge worries and fears to their partners; they simply try to handle everything on their own.
A consequence of such reticence is (1) lack of intimacy in the relationship, with the wife feeling "left out" of her husband's life; and (2) men often don't get what they need because they don't know how to ask for it, so they feel distanced and frustrated when they really want closeness and intimacy as much as their partner does.
Sex under these conditions creates distance in the relationship or creates sexual dysfunction which drives an even deeper wedge into the relationship. This is especially true if a man is married to a woman must be wanted by her husband to have her sexuality validated.
Consequently, sex routinely becomes mechanical, unfeeling, and unfulfilling. Fortunately, anyone can break this vicious cycle and restore closeness, intimacy, and sexual flow in the relationship.