Your grandma is loving and doting. She spoils you when you visit. She lavishes you with her cookies and coffee cakes. Perhaps she’s even knitting you a sweater.
There’s also a chance that grandma is still rockin’ the sheets at night, or during that afternoon “toes-up” time. This may come as a shocker—you mean my Grandma? But studies show it’s true.
Though statistics on the sexual habits of older women are scarce, data collected by researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health shows that among women ages 60 to 94, 34 percent of married women and 4 percent of non-married women report having had sexual activity in the past three months.
So why should we care what the older set is doing in its romantic life? These activities have made some unsuspecting women more susceptible to getting an STD—especially HIV, the precursor to AIDS.
“Lots of times the assumption is that women in older age groups aren’t sexually active, or that they are in a stable long-term partnership with lower risk,” says Dr. Divya Patel, the study’s lead author and a researcher in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan. “In the past, you didn’t consider people who are 70 or 80 having sex. Now more couples are able to have intercourse over a longer period of time, due to drugs like Viagra and Cialis, so sexuality is extended into later parts of life, or in some couples it has returned. The main thing to note is that women in the older age group do engage in these behaviors that increase their risk of STDs.”
In fact, in 2005, 15 percent of all new HIV diagnosis was among men and women over the age of 50, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control. (The data does not differentiate between genders.) The CDC suggests that the number of older people newly diagnosed with HIV has stabilized—but data collected from small pockets of research around the country suggest the opposite.
“When you speak specifically about older people, there are a couple of problems with interpreting the data,” says Dr. Aletha Akers, assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “We don’t have detailed or accurate statistics for the older population—a lot of data just isn’t there. But of the data that is available through the Centers for Disease Control, it appears that HIV rates among older people are stable. There have been some specific cities and counties around the country that have more detailed statistics that show HIV rates among their older population is rising.”
Data are limited about other STDs in the older population since STD testing is not routinely performed. “[Older women] do get other STDs, but in a much smaller proportion compared to other age groups,” says Akers. Statistics show small but noteworthy numbers for STDs such as gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis and HPV in women in their 40s and 50s, says Akers.
