You and your sex life


        YOU AND YOUR SEX LIFE
It has traditionally been assumed that women at and after the menopause are likely to lose interest in sex — that sexual desire ebbs from the forties onwards and drifts relentlessly downwards. Older women who have an evident — perhaps even a lusty — interest in sex tend to be caricatured as clinging pathetically to lost youth, being somehow depraved, or as having 'emotional' problems. The American writer Dorothy Parker put the whole matter on a cheery footing in her poem 'The Little Old Lady in Lavender Silk'. At 'seventy-seven, come August' she had faced up to the 'passing from Summer to Fall' and believed that, throughout her long life, there was 'nothing more fun than a man'. These sentiments are echoed in recent careful reviews of medical and social research that paint a different, more complex picture of sexual activity after menopause.
Numerous studies show no clear evidence of a consistent and predictable decline in sexual desire or activity among older women. Rather there is wide variability, with the presence of a suitable male partner being more important than age. Edward Brecher's 1984 study of sexuality and ageing, the largest since Alfred Kinsey's study of 1938, found a clear decline in sexual activity among US women over the age of fifty compared with men. But when he took account of whether the women were married or widowed (that is, presumably deprived of easy access to a partner), he found almost identical levels of sexual activity for both sexes.
Other studies, such as that of Dr Gloria Bachmann, suggest that sexual activity may decline if problems such as lubrication are not dealt with; if night sweats and insomnia are severe and persistent; if either partner is ill; if the male partner has a medical problem or takes medication that affects his sexual capability; if partners are unhappy in their relationship; or if they are subject to other major life stresses. Perhaps such factors help to explain the finding of the Melbourne Women's Midlife Health Study that nearly a third of women who had a natural menopause between the ages of forty-five and fifty-five reported a decline in sexual interest.
Cultural values and traditions may also have subtle influences on sexual activity. For example, if sex is valued mainly for the children that may result, sexual activity may be restricted to the fertile years. On the other hand, in societies that value sexuality in older women and do not consider that female attractiveness resides solely with the young, postmenopausal women are more likely to be sexually active.
So it is clear that there is little to suggest, among women with suitable opportunities, an inevitable or precipitous fall in sexual activity at or after menopause.
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