Mature Sexual Minds Over Matters

Postmenopausal women can still enjoy sexual encounters

(RxWiki News) Old-time rock 'n roll now has a new meaning. Just because sexual abilities may go down in aging women, it doesn't mean they aren't still having a good time in the sack.

A recent study found that successfully aging with a nice quality of life correlates well with sexual satisfaction in postmenopausal women. The sexual functioning and activity does vary with age, but when the participants believed they had a successful, high quality life, their sexual satisfaction remained high.

"Enjoy your senior life and reap sexual benefits."

Co-lead author Wesley K. Thompson, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry with the Stein Institute for Research on Aging at the UC San Diego School of Medicine reports that the study proved their hypothesis wrong. The researchers began the study thinking that sexual satisfaction was strongly associated with age, which turned out not to be true.

Thompson observes that when older people are still enjoying their lives they have a unique ability to continue their enjoyment of sex. It is especially true for those who have remained on a physical fitness program and do activities like crossword puzzle and bridge to keep their minds active. He also adds that this perceived sexual satisfaction might add to other psychological aspects of growing older.

The study by researchers at the Stein Institute for Research on Aging at the University of California, San Diego looked at over 1,000 women enrolled at the San Diego site of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study, a major ongoing research program which since the early 1990s, has recorded causes of death, disability and monitored quality of life in more than 160,000 postmenopausal women.

As expected, desire, orgasms, arousal and sexual happenings and functioning (such things as desire, arousal and ability to climax) decreased with age, as did their mental and physical health. In spite of their abilities diminishing, overall sexual satisfaction was 67 percent in the group of women ages 60 to 69, 60 percent in the women in their 70s and 61 percent for women in their 80s.

Review Date: 
August 25, 2011