There are often stories about the value of human touch. During these tough financial times instead of wringing our hands, perhaps we should be reaching out.
Monday during the day of doldrums when the financial world looked as if it was going belly up, Sharon Jayson for USA Today wrote about a new study in which researchers found that a warm touch can temper stress and blood pressure. The study was performed on 34 young married couple, but it noted that it could have an affect on seniors.
It is difficult to do such a study on seniors because so many are taking medications that might confound results. This is too bad because studies are beginning to show that widowed and divorced men over age 65 who are alone are more prone to depression and suicide. Nonetheless, researchers are suggesting even this group can benefit. Healing Touch
Seniors and Wall Street: The news today was dire for seniors – one conservative writer suggested that 401Ks might be best used with kindling wood!
I am more optimistic – not just an incurably romantic, but an optimistic one as well. As such, I am reprinting here my piece on Sex and Smiling Seniors that originally appeared in the Providence Journal. Some people jump into bed and pull the covers over their heads — I have another thought — jump into bed with someone you love.
So take your mind off the market – there is very little we can do anyway, and think about hugging, loving, and even a little bit of sex.
Sex and Smiling Seniors (adapted from my Providence Journal Column)
Great-grandma was ahead of her time. When she came to America to celebrate her 90th birthday and visit her 12 children, the party invitation read: “No presents, just negligees made of French silk.” As she opened gifts she fingered the fabric and smiled, “Grazia.” When she died at 104, her young lover was 80. It was then that we learned of her amorous ways.
But these days, if you have young children, when you do get to bed at night, you have only one thought in mind – sleep. If you are a business couple, married to laptops and e-mail gadgets, you don’t even get to bed every night. But if you are in your senior years and smiling coyly, you might be one of those who enjoys sex regularly, as reported recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The universities of Chicago and Toronto studied 3,005 men and women between ages 57 to 85, and reported that two-thirds of those in their 70s are having sex at least twice a month. Some continue into their 80s. An interesting finding is that while both genders admit to sexual issues, men tend to talk to their doctors about them while women tend not to.
The explanation is simple. Men have an advocate in Bob Dole. War hero and retired Republican senator from Kansas, he took to the airwaves nearly 10 years ago and helped spawn an industry talking about ED – erectile dysfunction. The pharmaceutical companies still applaud him, as do content men and oftentimes the younger women on their arm.
Not all older gentlemen want trophy wives. Although the following words were mistakenly attributed to Andy Rooney, we still love them: “Once you get past a wrinkle or two, an older woman is far sexier than her younger counterpart! Her libido is stronger. Her appreciation of experienced lovemaking is honed and reciprocal. And she’s lived long enough to know how to please a man in ways her daughter could never dream of.”
Why do people have sex anyway? Psychologists at the University of Texas, Austin, asked 2,000 people and compiled a list of 237 reasons. For both men and women the top two reasons stated: attraction to the person; physical pleasure. When dual-career couples take to their separate bedrooms, they forgo the spontaneity and connection that keeps physical loving alive.
Despite Alzheimer’s, whenever my father, Vincent, shakes someone’s hand, he always remembers to say: “If we touch each other more, we hurt each other less.” Are seniors telling us that sex is really human touch – the ultimate expression of caring and friendship?
In a world of chaos and uncertainty, perhaps seniors are experiencing what young couples and professionals are missing – intimate moments that restore our spirit, reaffirm our humanity, and give us reason to exchange a discreetly knowing smile.
Copyright 2008 Rita Watson