Contrary to common perception that women lose interest in sex as they age, a new study has suggested that women who feel that sex is important, remain sexually active as they get older, even if they suffer from sexual dysfunction.
In the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Feb. 10, researchers studied 354 women who were between 40 and 65 years old and reported being sexually active when they took the test called Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI). The test is used to diagnose a woman's sexual problems and is comprised of questions pertaining to their arousal, vaginal lubrication, orgasm and pain during intercourse.
Four years later, the women took the same test and 85 percent of them were found to have remained sexually active. "A woman's age and whether she had gone through menopause didn't seem to be important to whether women continued to have sex," said lead study author Holly Thomas, a general internal medicine fellow in women's health at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "We were surprised to find that."
The researchers also found that most of the women scored low on the sexual function index with an average score that suggests of sexual dysfunction. The researchers, however, observed that sexual function did not predict whether or not women continued to have sex. What appeared to predict sexual activity are the women's race, relationship status, weight and whether or not they considered sex as important.
The researchers noted that white women and thinner women tend to remain sexually engaged.
The researchers also said that other aspects of sex become more important to women as they age. "I think it is important to keep a broad definition when we look at sexual function in this population," Thomas said. "As women age, kissing and intimate touching become more important relative to penetrative intercourse."
Thomas and her co-researchers hope the result of the study becomes an eye-opener. They said that they "want to emphasize that just because a woman might be middle-aged, if she comes to her doctor with a sexual complaint, the doctor shouldn't just automatically brush her off [with] 'oh, that's a normal part of aging.'"
"There's this popular public perception that as women age, sex becomes unimportant, and that women just stop having sex as they get older," Thomas said. "From our study, it looks like most women continue to have sex during midlife."
