How have your attitudes about sex changed since you were a young woman?
Take your answer in any direction you want.
Quote of the Week
A wise woman adapts herself to circumstances as water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it.
~ Chinese Proverb
Join the Conversation
This is a discussion site for women 60 and older. You are invited to help shape the stories in my upcoming book.
I try to post a new question for discussion every Monday and look forward to your comments.
Women & Aging 
I guess I jumped the gun and answered this in my first answer about health.
I will weigh in on this topic to spread the opinion on your forum to an extreme that might elicit some interesting feedback from other participants. If I had my way, I would not discuss sexuality with anyone. Why? It is a part of life, albeit natural, that is so rife with the potential for misunderstanding and trouble that I prefer to leave it alone. But I do not consider it to be a taboo subject. I am not in charge of the opinions of others. This personal viewpoint has not changed since the days of my youth.
I think those figures seem low. (And I also think it’s comical that the upper age of the sample was 60!) From what I have read, fear of AIDs has faded into the sunset; STDs can be (more or less) avoided by the use of condoms; and TV and movies make fidelity seem as outdated as last week’s techno-toy. Is there a prominent TV character in any series who is faithful to his/her partner? That’s a question, not a comment–I honestly don’t know.
My 68-year-old self isn’t shocked at all by infidelity stats. Repression of any kind (think the Victorian age to the 1950s) has always been followed by tsunamis of repressed behavior. Now, given our media-driven culture that supports never saying no to one’s desires, material or otherwise, morality/monogamy, even among those who would seem most in favor (ministers of conservative megachurches, as one example), is I think largely a matter of opportunity. Oh, and this is absolutely not what I thought when I was a young woman!
“Results of a study done by the U. of Iowa of 783 heterosexual adults age 18 to 60 in the Chicago area, 1/3 of the sexual relationships of the group lacked exclusivity. Researchers are studying the accceleration in the spread of sexually transmitted disease in concurrent partnership.” (My 75-year-old reaction is to lament the demise of fidelity in younger people.)