A new study finds that married seniors who are sexually active once a month report happier lives and marriages.
The survey was based on the responses of 238 married people age 65 years or older. Findings revealed that 40 percent of the participants who reported no sexual activity in the last 12 months said they were "happy" with life in general. But almost 60 percent of those who had sex more than once a month said they were "very happy." Researchers controlled for other factors such as age, health, gender, and financial satisfaction.
In rating marital satisfaction, 59 percent of the participants who hadn't had sex in the past year said they were happy with their marriage, while 80 percent of those who had sex once a month said they were very happy.
"Highlighting the relationship between sex and happiness will help us in developing and organizing specific sexual health interventions for this growing segment of our population," said study researcher Adrienne Jackson, a professor at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.
The new research was presented over the weekend at the Gerontological Society of America's 64th Annual Scientific Meeting in Boston.
Another survey published in 2007 in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that while sexual frequency may decline with age, more than half of 75- to 85-year-olds reported having sex at least two to three times a month, and 23 percent reported having sex at least once a week.
Copyright AFP/Relaxnews
