How to Have a Sex Life After 50

My husband and I met in the sweltering summer of 1992 and started rocking and rolling immediately. But from the moment we got married a year later, we were 1) thinking about getting pregnant, 2) in a state of pregnancy, 3) recovering from pregnancy, or 4) enjoying (and coping with) the results of pregnancy: babies, toddlers, and now, two teenagers. It wasnt exactly conducive to swinging from chandeliers.


During those early years, sex was focused more on a result (children), but thats no longer the case. Like most couples over 50, we are free to have sex pretty much whenever we want. But do we?

I tried to find some statistics about how many times per week married Americans over 50 made love (with each other), but there were so many different studies saying so many different things, it was hard to suss out the truth. One stated that married couples over 50 had sex once or twice a week, while another claimed it was closer to once or twice a month.

Confused, and in need of more information, I met with Dr. Margaret Nachtigall, a reproductive endocrinologist in New York City, and daughter of Dr. Lila Nachtigall, one of this countrys leading experts on menopause, who shared some statistics from a study done by The National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior:

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