Only about one in 10 women aged 85 or older, and nearly one-quarter of men of that age, enjoy one. The problem is, having a sex life at all in your 80s is far from guaranteed. We saw what appeared to be adaptive behaviour in the older members of our sample.”ĭon’t bank on hitting your sexual peak so late, though. “We saw quite a lot of adaptation in the older people, saying they no longer had penetrative sexual intercourse and were more content with kissing and cuddling and general intimacy. Sex isn’t defined by penetration, says Lee – some older people find more imaginative ways to keep their sex lives active. Men and women in this age bracket reported more shared sexual compatibility and emotional closeness than those in their 50s, 60s and 70s – which sounds like good news for anyone going through a drought in middle age. In a report written with Professor Josie Tetley, using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, he notes that while physical challenges (erectile difficulties, for instance) occured more frequently with age, the emotional side of sex appeared more fulfilling for people over 80. D r David Lee, a research fellow at Manchester University’s School of Social Sciences, calls them “sexual survivors” – people over the age of 80 who still enjoy an active sex life.
