HOMOSEXUALITY AND AGING

Posted by admin on April 6, 2009 under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction | Be the First to Comment

There is no reason to believe that the physiological effects of aging are any different for homosexuals than for heterosexuals. No replicatable study has demonstrated that homosexuals have a hormonal status different from that of heterosexuals, nor do these groups differ from each other in any other physiological way. All of the physiological factors which influence and result from human aging (functional and capacity changes) naturally characterize all individuals regardless of their object of sexual preference. If there are differential effects in aging, they are the psychological adjustment and responses to the symbolic meaning of growing older as it relates to the homosexual and heterosexual cultures.

In Kinsey’s samples, the accumulative incidence of sexual, same-sex contact among women was 28%, slightly more than half-as great as among men (50%). Thirty-seven percent of the single males compared with 13% of the single females reported homosexual contacts to orgasm.

Among single males, 25% of the total sexual outlet from the ages of twenty-one to twenty-five was in homosexual activity. The comparable figures for the late thirties and late forties were 42% and 54%, respectively. The active accumulative incidence among single males went from 25% in the teens to a maximum of 41% in the late thirties. Among males who were single until age thirty-five, 50% had had some homosexual experience.

Among women, the accumulative incidence rose gradually from age ten to age thirty. By age thirty, 17% of the Kinsey sample had had some homosexual experience and by age forty, 19% had had some sexual contact with another woman. By age forty, the accumulative incidence for single (never married) females was 24%, substantially greater than for married (3%) or previously married (9%) women.

As for extent of homosexuality, 2 to 6% of the females and 5 to 22% of the males were exclusively or primarily homosexual (5- or 6-point ratings on the Kinsey scale). In every age group, only one-half to one-third as many women as men were primarily or exclusively homosexual.

The Kinsey data on male incidence figures from ages eight to forty-five suggest a curvilinear relationship between age and incidence of homosexual behavior. These cross-sectional data for ages thirteen, twenty-four, thirty-six, and forty-five show the number of men engaging in homosexual activity at these ages to be 13%, 37%, 27%, and 23%, respectively. In the active sample, 22% of the single males in their late teens had had homosexual contact resulting in orgasm. The comparable figures for males in their late thirties was 40%.

Single-female incidence figures for contact to orgasm were 2 to 3% in the teens showing a gradual increase with age to a maximum of 10% at age forty.

Both single males and single females showed drops in incidence of contact to orgasm by the late forties, suggesting possible age-related declines in sexual activity. Females showed a 60% drop (to 4%) from the late thirties, but males showed a drop of only 10% (to 36% incidence) for the comparable age period.

In Kinsey’s active sample of single women, most (51%) had had one partner only. Twenty percent had had two partners, and only 4% had had more than ten partners. The single male experience was quite different, with 22% of the active sample males having had more than ten partners.

Frequencies of homosexual contact to orgasm were not higher than the frequencies of intercourse reported for heterosexual samples. Median frequency of contact to orgasm showed no decrement with age and was about .9 times per month for single women from ages twenty-one through forty. For the active sample of women, the mean frequency went from about once per week in the twenties to about twice per week in the thirties. No active sample data were available for women over forty.

Among single males, the mean frequencies to orgasm showed a slight age-related increment from 1 to 1.5 times per week in the twenties to about 2 times per week in the early thirties. The mean frequencies of homosexual contact rose from about one per week in the teens to almost two per week from the ages of thirty-one to thirty-five. They remained at more than once per week through age fifty.

The frequency of contact to orgasm for respondents did not decline in Kinsey’s data, and the percentages of respondents engaging in homosexual activity actually increased with age into the forties. Because Kinsey presented very little data on old-age subjects, there is no way to assess changes in activity after mid-life. The maximum frequencies within age groups among males suggest, however, a slowdown which is probably age-related. Kinsey reported maximum frequencies in the late twenties as high as fifteen times per week. By age fifty, the most active person was averaging only five times per week. The age-related increase in proportions of homosexually active respondents may be an artifact of the culture at the time of the Kinsey study. Societal pressures may have introduced a latency for resolving the homosexual orientation which would have resulted in submitting to homosexual inclination later in life.

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