'More Women Over 70 Now Sexually Active'

Older single women may be more sexually active than thought, even beyond the seventh decade of their life, a new study has claimed. However, at least one in seven women aged 65 to 79 years have hypoactive sexual desire dysfunction (HSDD) – lack or absence of sexual desire. In the questionnaire-based study, published in the journal Menopause, more than 1,500 Australian women were assessed for sexual function and sexual distress. The group consisted of 52.6% partnered women with a mean age of 71 years. Within this group,88% were found to have low sexual desire, 15.5% had sexually related personal distress and 13.6% had HSDD, which is defined as the presence of both low sexual desire and sexually related personal distress. This percentage was higher than what had previously been reported for women in this age group and similar to the prevalence reported for younger women. The study confirmed that unpartnered older women are sexually active and may be distressed by low sexual desire.