New Research Addresses Women's Lost Interest in Sex as They Age

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New research recently found that women are losing interest in sex as they reach their 'midlife' stage and beyond.

New research recently found that women are losing interest in sex as they reach their "midlife" stage and beyond. A CNN report said, this study followed more than 3,200 women for roughly 15 years.

In an abstract presented during The North American Menopause Society's 2020 annual meeting, the lead author, Dr. Holly Thomas, said that about one-fourth of women rate sex as essential regardless of age.

On Monday, Thomas, a University of Pittsburgh assistant professor of medicine, said their study presents significant numbers of women who "still highly value sex, even as they get older, and it's not normal."

If women could speak up with their partner, the assistant professor added and ensured that they have sex that gives them fulfillment and pleasure, they are more likely to grade it as highly essential as they get older.

Meanwhile, according to the medical director of NAMS, Dr. Stephanie Faubion, who was not part of the said study, the finding was "actually quite refreshing that there were a quarter of women" from whom sex stays not only on the radar but highly essential.

Studies like these, she added, offer valuable visions to health care providers who may otherwise terminate the fading sexual desire of a woman as a natural part of aging.

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Breaking the Myth

While it's true that previous studies have shown that women tend to lose sexual desire as they age, practitioners for women's health claim that the attitude and behavior do not jibe with what they see I reality.

In the said report, Thomas explained that some formerly done studies had proposed that "sex goes downhill," and all women lose sexual desire as they get older. That is not the type of story, though, that she hears from all her patients.

She elaborated that one issue is that previous research took a single snapshot of the desire of a one at one point in her life, compared to related photos in the later years of life.

"That type of longitudinal study," the lead author explained, would present averages over time. And if things are looked at on average, she continued, it may seem that everyone follows the same path.

This new research employed a different approach in an analysis that enabled the study authors to track the trajectory of a woman's desire over time.

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The Pathways of a Woman's Sexual Desire

The study, which examined data from nationwide multi-site research called the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation or SWAN, found three distinctive pathways, particularly in a woman's feelings about the essentiality of sex.

The report indicates that as a result, the study found about 28 percent of women were found to have followed the traditional thinking on the subject of them giving less value to sex in their midlife age.

Nonetheless, another fourth of the women participants in the study said precisely the opposite. Specifically, about 27 percent of them claimed sex stayed highly essential in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, which is a surprising opposite of the belief in the old-age stage that all women are losing interest in sex as they get older.

In this new research, women who highly valued sex were found to have shared common characteristics such as being "more highly educated, less depressed, and had experienced better sexual satisfaction" before reaching their midlife years.

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