Study: More Married Sex After Retirement Makes You ‘Very Happy’

LOS ANGELES—Well, what do you know! A study out of Florida has found that people over the age of 65 who have sex regularly are by and large happier than people who do not. By regularly, we’re talking once a month. That’s right. Amazingly, people were paid to conduct this study, which was done by the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University—just the sort of higher education institution that one would expect to conduct a study on the sex habits of the fruit fly … er, older Americans. Of course, the school is in Florida, and Florida has a lot of retired people; hence, the study. According to its author, assistant professor Adrienne Jackson, “will help open the lines of communication and spark interest in developing ‘outside the box’ approaches to dealing with resolvable issues that limit or prevent older adults from participating in sexual activity.” Jackson surveyed 238 married people over the age of 65, almost 60 percent of whom who had sex more than once a month and described themselves as "very happy” with their lives and marriages. However, psychcentral.com reported that the study’s results showed that “while about 59 percent of individuals who reported no sexual activity in the last 12 months said they were very happy with their marriage, almost 80 percent who had sex more than once a month said they were very happy.” Now we’re confused. The respondents appear to have been asked essentially the same question a few different ways, resulting in confused results. In fact, several articles reporting on the study reprinted the same results, which to our ears sound eerily similar. For instance, this is how the Baltimore Sun encapsulated the key findings of the study: Forty percent who reported no sexual activity in the last 12 months said they were very happy with life in general.  Sixty percent who had sex more than once a month said they were very happy. About 59 percent who reported no sexual activity during the same time period said they were very happy with their marriage  Eighty percent who had sex more than once a month said they were very happy with their marriage. We added the bold to highlight why we’re confused. It looks as if everyone who was surveyed was “very happy,” no matter how much sex they were or were not getting. Nothing wrong with that, but where’s the news? In fact, after looking through everything we can find about this study, we think the one and only conclusion that comes out of it is: sex or no sex, people who stay married longer are … drum roll … very happy! Photo: Over 65s learn about sex from the internet.