Survey: Seniors Have Sex Into 70s, 80s

Jack and Elizabeth Menager pose at their home in Los Angeles Saturday, Aug. 18, 2007. An unprecedented study of sex and seniors finds that many older people are surprisingly frisky _ willing to do, and talk about, intimate acts that would make their grandchildren blush. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) (Reed Saxon - Associated Press)

The proportion of each gender reporting giving and receiving oral sex "matched up perfectly," Lindau said. "This gives us pretty good reassurance that men and women are telling the same story."

Older people were generally sexually conservative. A small minority had more than one partner, and very few said they paid for sex.

Researchers also used state-of-the-art technology and products donated by several companies to test people's senses. Taste strips were used to see if people could distinguish between various tastes (sour, salty). Special devices were used to test the ability to smell certain scents, including a suspected pheromone _ a smell thought to evoke sexual responses.

Scents and tastes "get under the skin to influence biology," and scientists wanted to know whether these senses diminish as people age, Lindau explained.

Niels Teunis, an anthropologist and researcher at the Institute of Sexuality, Social Inequality, and Health at San Francisco State University, said the survey bolsters the "use it or lose it" factor seen in previous studies.

"If you are doing it, you keep doing it. If you slack off in marriage like when you're in your 40s, it's hard to pick it up when you are older," he said.

Jack Menager, 83, and his wife, Elizabeth, 84, agree. The suburban Los Angeles couple say they have had a good sex life for nearly 60 years.

"It gives a person relief on any burdens or problems. It makes us forget everything _ escape," he said, admitting that as physical endurance wanes "you have to work at it harder."

The couple takes twice daily walks, drinks wine in moderation and talks a lot, said his wife.

"I think it's important," she said of sex. "It just makes you feel close."

More men than women felt that way. Only 13 percent of men but 35 percent of women said sex was "not at all important."

Menopause has a big effect on women, and the drop-off of estrogen makes many of them less interested in sex, Dr. John Bancroft of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University wrote in an accompanying editorial.

But menopause also means women no longer have to worry about getting pregnant, and many have more time and feel freer after children are gone, notes Westheimer, the sex adviser.

At age 79, she said, "I don't ever answer personal questions" about sex. But she added, "I certainly have a zest for life."

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Associated Press Science Writer Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.