What is the role of sexual activity in the health of older adults? What are some of the unique challenges faced by this population when it comes to sexual activity? How should social workers react to sexuality among older adults?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Many older adults still want and need to be intimate with others and want to have an active and satisfying sex life. But physical or emotional problems may thwart their desires. Both men and women experience normal physical changes as they age that affect their ability to have and enjoy sex. For example, an older woman's vagina may become shorter, narrower, thinner, stiffer, and drier, all of which affect function and pleasure. As men age, impotence, or erectile dysfunction, becomes more common. With erectile dysfunction, a man loses his ability to get and keep an erection for sexual intercourse, or it may take longer for another erection to become possible. Sexual problems may also be due to illnesses, disabilities, medicines, or surgeries. The main physical problems that affect sexual relations include arthritis, chronic pain, dementia, diabetes, heart disease, incontinence, stroke, depression, surgery, medications, and alcohol. Older adults can also contract sexually transmitted diseases. Almost anyone who is sexually active is also at risk of being infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The number of older adults with HIV/AIDS is growing. Emotions also play a role in sexuality. How you feel affects what you can do. Many older couples find greater satisfaction in their sex life than they did when they were younger, because they have fewer distractions, more time and privacy, no concerns about pregnancy, and more intimacy with their lifelong partner. However, older women may be unhappy because their looks have changed and they feel less attractive. Older men may fear that erectile dysfunction will become even more common as they age, and stress can trigger it. Older couples face daily stresses like everybody else, in addition to having concerns about age, illness, retirement, and other lifestyle changes. Relationship problems can affect a couple's ability to enjoy sex as well. Marriages differ substantially in their starting levels of marital quality, and multiple contextual factors can accelerate or delay the rates of change for certain marriages. For example, the presence and age of children in the home, work demands, and family support or interference affect the experience and quality of marriage over time. Intimacy-mutual sharing of personal feelings, honesty, and respect-becomes increasingly important as relationships develop and mature. Enjoying time with friends and relating to each other with acceptance and respect both enhance the intimacy between a couple. Social workers must adopt the attitude that sexuality in older adults should not be stigmatized or considered taboo. If partners are available, the potential for passion exists. Passion, caring, and intimacy are enduring socioemotional needs for adults of all ages. Sexuality is equally important to single, partnered, widowed, married, and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) couples.