Older women still enjoy healthy sex life

While it said that women become less sexually active as they get older, a new study has found that a large number of women aged 60 and above still enjoy a healthy sex life.

Dr. Alison J. Huang, of the University of California at San Francisco, studied 1977 racially and ethnically women, aged 45 to 80 years old.

She and her colleagues found that 43 per cent of women, overall, said that their interest in or desire to have sex was "moderate to very high" over the past three months, while 60 per cent reported some sexual activity in the previous three months.

Among those in the age group 65 and older, 28 per cent reported at least moderate interest in sex during the past three months, and nearly 37 per cent had engaged in sexual activity during that time, reports The Age.

Fifty-seven per cent said they were at least moderately sexually satisfied.

The study also showed that women who were sexually inactive were more likely to be satisfied with their sex lives if they were older.

Among those not sexually active, 39 per cent reported lack of interest, 36 pct reported lack of a partner,

Nearly 23pct mentioned their partners'' physical problems, and 11pct reported their partners'' lack of interest in sex.

Only about 9 per cent of the women said that their own physical problems were the cause.

In addition, being married or living with a partner more than tripled a woman''s likelihood of having sex at least weekly.

The chances of having weekly sexual activity also rose with a woman''s scores on tests of mental and physical health.

The findings have appeared in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.