Sexual desire in later life

Abstract

The has been relatively little research on sexuality in later life, particularly among persons over 60 years of age. The existing literature consists of studies of small samples, much of it from a biomedical perspective. This literature suggests that age, hormone levels, specific illnesses, and various medications negatively affect sexual functioning in older persons. The study reports results from a survey of a large sample (N=1,384) of persons age 45 and older that included measures of a variety of biological, psychological and social factors that potentially influence sexual functioning. We report bivariate and multivariate analysis conducted separately for women and men. We find that the principal influences on strength of sexual desire among women are age, the importance of sex to the person, and education. In this sample of the population of older persons, attitudes are more significant influences on sexual desire than biomedical factors.

Sexuality in Older Adults (65+)—An Overview of the Literature, Part 1: Sexual Function and its Difficulties

“…For example, in a cross-sectional study of American women aged 61-89 years, poor self-rated health, depressive symptoms, and lower life satisfaction were associated with higher odds of sexual difficulties (Huges, Rostant, & Pelon, 2015). Other studies, however, have reported that relationship factors and attitudinal factors are stronger predictors of level of sexual desire in ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 10 older women than medication or physical illness (DeLamater & Sill, 2005). Based on findings from a nationally representative U.S. probability sample of men and women aged 57-85 years, Laumann et al (2008) concluded that "sexual problems among the elderly are not an inevitable consequence of aging, but instead are responses to the presence of stressors in multiple life domains" (p. 2300).…”

“…Another important predictor of sexual function problems and distress is whether a woman has a current sexual partner (DeLamater & Sill, 2005;Hinchliff et al, 2010;Rosen, Shifren, Monz, Odom, et al, 2009) and, among partnered women, whether the male partner has sexual difficulties (Mitchell et al, 2013). In the U.K. Natsal-3 survey, 43.3% of sexually active women aged 65-74 years reported that their partner had sexual difficulties, compared with 23.1% of men in this age group.…”

Empirical redefinition of comprehensive health and well-being in the older adults of the United States

“…After assigning participants to a latent class based on their health measures [average assignment certainty = 0.83 (MM) and 0.89 (CM)], we sought to characterize the classes in terms of the participants' social and demographic traits. At older ages, sexual motivation can be a key component of social connection, vitality, and well-being (37)(38)(39). A fourfold difference in sexual motivation, indexed by sexual ideation (40), significantly distinguished the health classes in the CM [only 12% of the Robust Obese (CM1) class rarely thought about sex (less than once a month) in contrast with 52% of Extensive Multimorbidity and Frailty (CM6)] (Fig.…”

Women, Sex and Modern Society: The Sex Lives of Readers of a Dutch Women's Magazine

“…Older women did not seem to perceive this as problematic: they were as satisfied with the frequency of sex as younger women. The declining frequency of sex with a partner is likely to be caused, at least partially, by women's decreasing sex drive (DeLamater & Sill, 2005) and/or increasing health problems (Burgess, 2004). We also found that, when having sex, older women had qualitatively different sex than younger women: when having sex, they especially less often engaged in oral sex.…”