Sex

Sex

Sex Really Does Get Better With Age (Just Ask A 70 Year Old)

An increasing number of 70 year olds are having good sex and more often, and women in this age group are particularly satisfied with their sex lives, according to a study published on the British Medical Journal website.

ScienceDaily
July 9, 2008

Knowledge about sexual behaviour in older people (70 year olds) is limited and mainly focuses on sexual problems, less is known about "normal" sexual behaviour in this age group.

Nils Beckman and colleagues from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, studied attitudes to sex in later life among four representative population samples of 70 year olds in Sweden, who they interviewed in 1971-2, 1976-7, 1992-3, and 2000-1. In total, over 1 500 people aged 70 years were interviewed about different aspects of their sex lives including sexual dysfunctions, marital satisfaction and sexual activity.

The authors found that over the thirty year period the number of 70 year olds of both sexes reporting sexual intercourse increased: married men from 52% to 68%, married women from 38% to 56%, unmarried men from 30% to 54%, and unmarried women from 0.8% to 12%.

In addition, the number of women reporting high sexual satisfaction increased, more women reported having an orgasm during sex and fewer reported never having had an orgasm.

While the proportion of women reporting low satisfaction with their sex lives decreased, the proportion of men reporting low satisfaction increased. The authors suggest that this might be because it is now more acceptable for men to admit "failure" in sexual matters.

They also note that the number of men reporting erectile dysfunction deceased, whereas the proportion reporting ejaculation dysfunction increased, but the proportion reporting premature ejaculation did not change.

Interestingly, both men and women blame men when sexual intercourse stops between them. This finding replicates the results of other studies in the 1950s and 2005-06.

"Our study...shows that most elderly people consider sexual activity and associated feelings a natural part of later life", they conclude.

These findings emphasise the important and positive part sex plays in the lives of 70 year olds and is a welcome contribution to the limited literature about sexual behaviour in older people, writes Professor Peggy Kleinplatz from the University of Ottawa in Canada.

It will hopefully highlight the need for doctors to be trained to ask all patients, regardless of age, about their sexual concerns, she adds.

Erectile dysfunction lower in men who have intercourse more often

Having intercourse more often may help prevent the development of erectile dysfunction (ED). A study published in the July 2008 issue of The American Journal of Medicine reports that researchers have found that men who had intercourse more often were less likely to develop ED.

07/02/2008
Science Blog

Analyzing a five-year study of 989 men aged 55 to 75 years from Pirkanmaa, Finland, the investigators observed that men reporting intercourse less than once per week at baseline had twice the incidence of erectile dysfunction compared with those reporting intercourse once per week. Further, the risk of erectile dysfunction was inversely related to the frequency of intercourse.

Other factors that may affect the incidence of ED, such as age, chronic medical conditions (diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, cerebrovascular disease and depression), body mass index and smoking were included in the analysis of the data.

Erectile dysfunction incidence was 79 cases per 1000 in men who had reported sexual intercourse less than once per week, dropping to 32 cases per 1000 in men reporting intercourse once per week and falling further to 16 per 1000 in those reporting intercourse 3 or more times per week.

In addition, the frequency of morning erections predicted the development of complete erectile dysfunction, with an approximate 2.5-fold risk among those with less than 1 morning erection per week compared with 2 to 3 morning erections per week

Writing in the article, Juha Koskimäki, MD, PhD, Tampere University Hospital, Department of Urology, Tampere, Finland, states; "Regular intercourse has an important role in preserving erectile function among elderly men, whereas morning erection does not exert a similar effect. Continued sexual activity decreases the incidence of erectile dysfunction in direct proportion to coital frequency."

The study clearly indicates that regular intercourse protects men from the development of erectile dysfunction, which may, in turn, impact general health and quality of life. The investigators advise clinicians to support the sexual activity of their patients.

Reality check: 95 percent of Americans had premarital sex

More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.

NEW YORK
Dec 2006

"This is reality-check research," said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. "Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades."

Finer is a research director at the Guttmacher Institute, a private New York-based think tank that studies sexual and reproductive issues and which disagrees with government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports. (Sex by the numbers)

The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people -- about 33,000 of them women -- in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.

Even among a subgroup of those who abstained from sex until at least age 20, four-fifths had had premarital sex by age 44, the study found.

Finer said the likelihood of Americans having sex before marriage has remained stable since the 1950s, though people now wait longer to get married and thus are sexually active as singles for extensive periods.

The study found women virtually as likely as men to engage in premarital sex, even those born decades ago. Among women born between 1950 and 1978, at least 91 percent had had premarital sex by age 30, he said, while among those born in the 1940s, 88 percent had done so by age 44.

"The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government's funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12- to 29-year-olds," Finer said.

Under the Bush administration, such programs have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.

"It would be more effective," Finer said, "to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active -- which nearly everyone eventually will."

Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, defended the abstinence-only approach for teenagers.

"One of its values is to help young people delay the onset of sexual activity," he said. "The longer one delays, the fewer lifetime sex partners they have, and the less the risk of contracting sexually transmitted disease."

He insisted there was no federal mission against premarital sex among adults.

"Absolutely not," Horn said. "The Bush administration does not believe the government should be regulating or stigmatizing the behavior of adults."

Horn said he found the high percentages of premarital sex cited in the study to be plausible, and expressed hope that society would not look askance at the small minority that chooses to remain abstinent before marriage.

However, Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America, a conservative group which strongly supports abstinence-only education, said she was skeptical of the findings.

"Any time I see numbers that high, I'm a little suspicious," she said. "The numbers are too pat."

Erotic Images Elicit Strong Response From Brain

A new study suggests the brain is quickly turned on and "tuned in" when a person views erotic images`

Science Daily
June 13, 2006

A brain map illustrates different levels of activity as brain circuits process erotic and neutral visual materials 185 milliseconds after a picture is viewed. Red zones represent the highest activity levels in the brain regions processing erotic pictures. (Image courtesy of Washington University School of Medicine)Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis measured brainwave activity of 264 women as they viewed a series of 55 color slides that contained various scenes from water skiers to snarling dogs to partially-clad couples in sensual poses.

What they found may seem like a "no brainer." When study volunteers viewed erotic pictures, their brains produced electrical responses that were stronger than those elicited by other material that was viewed, no matter how pleasant or disturbing the other material may have been. This difference in brainwave response emerged very quickly, suggesting that different neural circuits may be involved in the processing of erotic images.

"That surprised us," says first author Andrey P. Anokhin, Ph.D., research assistant professor of psychiatry. "We believed both pleasant and disturbing images would evoke a rapid response, but erotic scenes always elicited the strongest response."

As subjects looked at the slides, electrodes on their scalps measured changes in the brain's electrical activity called event-related potentials (ERPs). The researchers learned that regardless of a picture's content, the brain acts very quickly to classify the visual image. The ERPs begin firing in the brain's cortex long before a person is conscious of whether they are seeing a picture that is pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.

But when the picture is erotic, ERPs begin firing within 160 milliseconds, about 20 percent faster than occurred with any of the other pictures. Soon after, the ERPs begin to diverge, with processing taking place in different brain structures for erotic pictures than those that process the other images.

"When we present a stimulus to a subject for example, when a picture appears on a screen it changes ongoing brain activity in certain ways, and we can detect those changes," Anokhin says.

Pictures appeared on a screen at 12 to 18 second intervals, and each picture remained on the screen for about 6 seconds. The subjects were instructed to do nothing other than look at the pictures.

A great deal of past research has suggested that men are more visual creatures than women and get more aroused by erotic images than women. Anokhin says the fact that the women's brains in this study exhibited such a quick response to erotic pictures suggests that, perhaps for evolutionary reasons, our brains are programmed to preferentially respond to erotic material.

"Usually men subjectively rate erotic material much higher than women," he says. "So based on those data we would expect lower responses in women, but that was not the case. Women have responses as strong as those seen in men."

Because the electroencephalogram (EEG) technology cannot pinpoint specific brain structures involved in this visual processing, Anokhin says it's not clear exactly which circuits are reacting to these visual scenes. Recent studies in primates recorded the electrical activity of single neural cells within the brain and have shown that the frontal cortex contains neurons that can discriminate between different categories of visual objects such as dogs versus cats. Whether or not the human prefrontal cortex contains special neurons that are "tuned" for sex remains a subject for future studies.

"The newer and more advanced technologies such as MRI and PET provide much better spatial resolution," he says. "Those methods can better localize areas of brain activity, but ERPs have a much better temporal resolution. The EEG can record neuronal activity in real time. When measuring activity in milliseconds, any delay is undesirable."

Most of Anokhin's research is centered on the genetic and neurobiological bases of behavioral traits that might be associated with increased vulnerability to alcoholism and addictive disorders. He believes this study could contribute to that work by detecting differences between responses to images with different emotional significance. Because many psychiatric disorders also are associated with poor processing of signals associated with reward and pleasure, as well as sexual disturbances, he believes the way the brain processes emotional pictures, including erotic materials, might help scientists better understand some forms of mental illness.

Anokhin AP, Golosheykin S, Sirevaag E, Kristjansson S, Rohrbaugh JW, Heath AC. Rapid discrimination of visual scene content in the human brain. Brain Research, doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2006.03.108, available on-line May 18, 2006.

Funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.

Equality Makes for Better Sex

Japanese adults can't get enough satisfaction, but Austria's mojo is working.

Associated Press
19 April 2006

Sex is more satisfying in countries where women and men are considered equal, according to an international study of people between the ages of 40 and 80 by researchers at the University of Chicago.

Austria topped the list of 29 nations studied with 71 percent of those surveyed reported being satisfied with their sex lives.

Spain, Canada, Belgium and the United States also reported high rates of satisfaction.

The lowest satisfaction rate -- 25.7 percent -- was reported in Japan.

The study was led by sociologist Edward Laumann, considered a top authority on the sociology of sex, who believes the findings show that relationships based on equality lead to more satisfaction for both genders.

"Male-centered cultures where sexual behavior is more oriented toward procreation tend to discount the importance of sexual pleasure for women,'' Laumann said.

"When mama's not happy, nobody's happy,'' he said.

The study appears in the April issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. It was funded by Pfizer, which makes the impotence drug Viagra.

Researchers surveyed 27,500 people by phone, in person or by mail, depending on local practices. The difference in questioning methods was one of the study's limitations, the researchers noted.

A nation's level of health and education could contribute to the findings, said John DeLamater, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and editor of the International Journal of Sex Research, who was not involved in the research.

"It's conceivable that people in developed countries have more information about sexuality. And they're also healthier,'' DeLamater said. "Being better informed, and being in better shape, they may be more able to maintain a satisfying sex life.''

Is Sex Necessary?

Fans of abstinence had better be sitting down.

Alan Farnham
www.forbes.com/health
Oct 2003

"Saving yourself" before the big game, the big business deal, the big hoedown or the big bakeoff may indeed confer some moral benefit. But corporeally it does absolutely zip. There's no evidence it sharpens your competitive edge. The best that modern science can say for sexual abstinence is that it's harmless when practiced in moderation. Having regular and enthusiastic sex, by contrast, confers a host of measurable physiological advantages, be you male or female. (This assumes that you are engaging in sex without contracting a sexually transmitted disease.)

In one of the most credible studies correlating overall health with sexual frequency, Queens University in Belfast tracked the mortality of about 1,000 middle-aged men over the course of a decade. The study was designed to compare persons of comparable circumstances, age and health. Its findings, published in 1997 in the British Medical Journal, were that men who reported the highest frequency of orgasm enjoyed a death rate half that of the laggards. Other studies (some rigorous, some less so) purport to show that having sex even a few times a week has an associative or causal relationship with the following:

- Improved sense of smell: After sex, production of the hormone prolactin surges. This in turn causes stem cells in the brain to develop new neurons in the brain's olfactory bulb, its smell center.

- Reduced risk of heart disease: In a 2001 follow-on to the Queens University study mentioned above, researchers focused on cardiovascular health. Their finding? That by having sex three or more times a week, men reduced their risk of heart attack or stroke by half. In reporting these results, the co-author of the study, Shah Ebrahim, Ph.D., displayed the well-loved British gift for understatement: "The relationship found between frequency of sexual intercourse and mortality is of considerable public interest."

- Weight loss, overall fitness: Sex, if nothing else, is exercise. A vigorous bout burns some 200 calories--about the same as running 15 minutes on a treadmill or playing a spirited game of squash. The pulse rate, in a person aroused, rises from about 70 beats per minute to 150, the same as that of an athlete putting forth maximum effort. British researchers have determined that the equivalent of six Big Macs can be worked off by having sex three times a week for a year. Muscular contractions during intercourse work the pelvis, thighs, buttocks, arms, neck and thorax. Sex also boosts production of testosterone, which leads to stronger bones and muscles. Men's Health magazine has gone so far as to call the bed the single greatest piece of exercise equipment ever invented.

- Reduced depression: Such was the implication of a 2002 study of 293 women. American psychologist Gordon Gallup reported that sexually active participants whose male partners did not use condoms were less subject to depression than those whose partners did. One theory of causality: Prostoglandin, a hormone found only in semen, may be absorbed in the female genital tract, thus modulating female hormones.

- Pain-relief: Immediately before orgasm, levels of the hormone oxytocin surge to five times their normal level. This in turn releases endorphins, which alleviate the pain of everything from headache to arthritis to even migraine. In women, sex also prompts production of estrogen, which can reduce the pain of PMS.

- Less-frequent colds and flu: Wilkes University in Pennsylvania says individuals who have sex once or twice a week show 30% higher levels of an antibody called immunoglobulin A, which is known to boost the immune system.

- Better bladder control: Heard of Kegel exercises? You do them, whether you know it or not, every time you stem your flow of urine. The same set of muscles is worked during sex.

- Better teeth: Seminal plasma contains zinc, calcium and other minerals shown to retard tooth decay. Since this is a family Web site, we will omit discussion of the mineral delivery system. Suffice it to say that it could be a far richer, more complex and more satisfying experience than squeezing a tube of Crest--even Tartar Control Crest. Researchers have noted, parenthetically, that sexual etiquette usually demands the brushing of one's teeth before and/or after intimacy, which, by itself, would help promote better oral hygiene.

- A happier prostate? Some urologists believe they see a relationship between infrequency of ejaculation and cancer of the prostate. The causal argument goes like this: To produce seminal fluid, the prostate and the seminal vesicles take such substances from the blood as zinc, citric acid and potassium, then concentrate them up to 600 times. Any carcinogens present in the blood likewise would be concentrated. Rather than have concentrated carcinogens hanging around causing trouble, it's better to evict them. Regular old sex could do the job. But if the flushing of the prostate were your only objective, masturbation might be a better way to go, especially for the non-monogamous male. Having sex with multiple partners can, all by itself, raise a man's risk of cancer by up to 40%. That's because he runs an increased risk of contracting sexual infections. So, if you want the all the purported benefits of flushing with none of the attendant risk, go digital. A study recently published by the British Journal of Urology International asserts that men in their 20s can reduce by
a third their chance of getting prostate cancer by ejaculating more than five times a week.

While possession of a robust appetite for sex--and the physical ability to gratify it--may not always be the cynosure of perfect health, a reluctance to engage can be a sign that something is seriously on the fritz, especially where the culprit is an infirm erection.

Dr. J. Francois Eid, a urologist with Weill Medical College of Cornell University and New York Presbyterian Hospital, observes that erectile dysfunction is extension of vascular system. A lethargic member may be telling you that you have diseased blood vessels elsewhere in your body. "It could be a first sign of hypertension or diabetes or increased cholesterol levels. It's a red flag that you should see your doctor." Treatment and exercise, says Dr. Eid, can have things looking up again: "Men who exercise and have a good heart and low heart rate, and who are cardio-fit, have firmer erections. There very definitely is a relationship."

But is there such a thing as too much sex?

The answer, in purely physiological terms, is this: If you're female, probably not. If you're male? You betcha.

Dr. Claire Bailey of the University of Bristol says there is little or no risk of a woman's overdosing on sex. In fact, she says, regular sessions can not only firm a woman's tummy and buttocks but also improve her posture.

Dr. George Winch Jr., an obstetrician/gynecologist in Elko, Nev., concurs. If a woman is pre-menopausal and otherwise healthy, says Dr. Winch, her having an extraordinary amount of intercourse ought not to pose a problem. "I don't think women can have too much intercourse," he says, "so long as no
sexually transmitted disease is introduced and there's not an inadvertent pregnancy. Sometimes you can have a lubrication problem. If you have that, there can be vaginal excoriation--vaginal scrape."

Women who abstain from sex run some risks. In postmenopausal women, these include vaginal atrophy. Dr. Winch has a middle-aged patient of whom he
says: "She hasn't had intercourse in three years. Just isn't interested. The opening of her vagina is narrowing from disuse. It's a condition that can lead to dysparenia, or pain associated with intercourse. I told her, 'Look, you'd better buy a vibrator or you're going to lose function there.'"

As for men, urologist Eid says it's definitely possible to get too much of a good thing, now that drugs such as Viagra and Levitra have given men far more staying power than may actually be good for them.

The penis, says Eid, is wonderfully resilient. But everything has its limits. Penile tissues, if given too roistering or prolonged a pummeling, can sustain damage. In cases you'd just as soon not hear about, permanent damage.

"Yes," says Dr. Eid, "It is possible for a young man who is very forceful and who likes rough sex, to damage his erectile tissue." The drugs increase rigidity; moreover, they make it possible for a man to have second and third orgasms without having to wait out intermission.

"I see it in pro football players," says Eid. "They use Viagra because they're so sexually active. What they demand of their body is unreasonable. It's part of playing football: you play through the pain." This type of guy doesn't listen to his body. He takes a shot of cortisone, and keeps on going. And they have sex in similar fashion."

There's a reason the penis, in its natural state, undergoes a period of flaccidity: That's when it takes a breather. The blood within it is replenished with oxygen. "During an erection," explains Eid, "very little blood flows to the penis. During thrusting, pressure can go as high as 200 mil of water. Zero blood flows into penis at that time." To absorb oxygen, the tissue must become relaxed. "If you do not allow the penis to rest, then the muscle tissue does not get enough oxygen. The individual gets prolonged erections, gets decreased oxygen to tissue, and could potentially suffer priapism." (We recommend you get a medical encyclopedia and look it up.) "The muscle becomes so engorged, it's painful. Pressure inside starts to increase. Cells start dying. More pressure and less blood flow. Eventually the muscle dies. Then there's scarring. That's why it's considered an emergency."