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Essay on Aging and Sexuality
Ageing or aging is the process of getting older. This article focuses on the social, cultural, and economic effects of ageing. The biology of ageing is treated in detail in senescence. Ageing is an important part of all human societies reflecting the biological changes that occur, but also reflecting cultural and societal conventions. Age is usually, but wholly arbitrarily, measured in years and a person's birthday is often an important event.
We don't discuss sexuality enough when considering the lives of older adults. It's easy to assume that aging brings dramatic changes and that sexuality is not a topic that concerns older adults to any great degree. Sometimes, however, events bring about a dramatic shift in awareness and understanding. The recent highly-publicized events when the medication Viagra was released provided a vivid example of such an event. Suddenly the country was swept with evidence that older adults are vitally concerned with sexuality. The evidence included the involvement of a former candidate for United States President, Bob Dole, publicly extolling the medication and what it had done for him, and also included dramatic statistics on the immediate response in terms of numbers of prescriptions written for Viagra.
Recent research suggesting that a high proportion of men and women remain sexually active well into later life refutes the prevailing myth that aging and sexual dysfunction are inexorably linked. Age-related physiological changes do not render a meaningful sexual relationship impossible or even necessarily difficult. In men, greater physical stimulation is required to attain and maintain erections, and orgasms are less intense. In women, menopause terminates fertility and produces changes stemming from estrogen deficiency. The extent to which aging affects sexual function depends largely on psychological, pharmacological, and illness-related factors.Although it is important that older men and women not fall into the psychosocial trap of expecting (or worse, trying to force) the kind and degree of sexual response characteristic.....
