The Good News: Seniors having lots of sex; The Bad News:They're getting STDs

Or so says a news report a friend sent me. This story, from a West Palm Beach TV station, relies on sources from Florida. Perhaps what applies to Florida, which has a large retirement population, also applies to Walnut Creek's Rossmoor, which also has a large retirement poulation.


"The population over 60 is having a lot of sex," West Palm Beach gynecologist and sexual health expert Dr. Maureen Whelihan tells WPBF-TV.

Whelihan said may of her patients maintain active sex lives well into their 80s. some are having sex in their 90s.


"Some of the barriers to sex when you're younger are: there's not enough time, there are kids in the house, there's no privacy, you're tired. When retirement occurs, besides traveling, what else is there to do but have great sex?" said Whelihan. 


However, some of these sexually active seniors are also having lots of unprotected sex.
The result is an "alarming increase in the rate of seniors contracting herpes,gonorrhea, HIV and AIDS. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Floridians over the age of 40 have the fastest growing rate of chlamydia cases of the last 10 years. Many of those new cases are seniors. Time magazine quotes researchers at Researchers at England's West Midlands Health Protection Agency who found that  in less than a decade, STD rates had more than doubled among people ages 45 and older.

"Now that the little blue pill came out and men are functioning, those that are still alive in their 70s and 80s have 10 women to every one guy," said Whelihan.Many older men, say these Florida experts, admit they do not wear condoms and their partners are not requiring them. 

I can see one reason these men and their partners wouldn't think of using condoms. They were probably first dating, becoming sexually active and getting married in the pre-AIDS era. From what I remember of sex education just before AIDS became a national health emergency, you were mainly taught to worry about getting pregnant, not contracting an STD. We were taught about STDs, but I don't remember a heavy emphasis on using condoms to prevent them. Condoms were still associated with birth control--and they were usually dismissed as one of the least reliable methods because people often didn't use them correctly. 

Maybe these seniors are going back to their younger, pre-AIDS era dating and sex patterns, when an unwanted pregnancy was the big worry. These post-menopausal women are delighting in the freedom of not having to worry about pregnancy; their partners are enjoying her enjoying this freedom. For them, having the man use a condom doesn't make sense if it's something they used to associate with birth control. 


They haven't caught on that the sex and dating game as changed, with the advent of HIV and new awareness about the transmission and dangers of STDs. Or, they might know that HIV is a bad thing but they can't fathom how that disease would ever apply to them. 

UPDATE: Missing Walnut Creek man, 77, found

UPDATE 9 a.m. Contra Costa Sheriff's Department spokesman confirms what some readers had reported on Claycord.com--that George Estes had been found alive and well.

Monday Night: The Contra Costa Sheriff's Department is currently searching the area around Treat Boulevard for George Estes, 77, who was last seen around 4 p.m. Monday at 1270 Elmwood Drive.

Authorities are concerned about his well-being because he has a medical condition, says Contra Costa Sheriff's Department spokesman Jimmy Lee.

Estes is a white male, 5 foot 8 inches tall and weighing approximately 168 pounds, with blond hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a white tee shirt and blue jeans.

If you believe you have seen this person or have any information regarding this person, please call the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office immediately at (925) 646-2441.

If you have elderly parents or neighbors, how do you check up to make sure they are safe?

Like a lot of you, I’ve been reading the Contra Costa Times story about the ordeal of Walnut Creek’s Shirley Madsen. The woman, who just turned 90, survived being trapped in her bathtub for three days. She went to take a bath, but when she was done, this otherwise healthy active woman found she was suddenly too weak to pull herself out.

It's fair to say that the specifics of Madsen's ordeal are unusual, but, sadly, the general situation--elderly person injured or incapacited in their home and unable to call for help--is not. And, Walnut Creek is known for its older population. Twenty-five percent of Walnut Creek residents are 65 or older.

Here's what happened with Madsen:

On Wednesday May 27, she returned from a senior trip to a casino resort, but hadn’t eaten much that day. She decided to take a bath before dinner, but didn’t realize how famished and fatigued she was. The kicker of the story is that, once trapped in the tub, she kept herself from becoming dehydrated by using a rubber duck as a cup to drink bathwater.

From what I can tell from the story and from talking to Madsen herself, she had a large extended family who were diligent about keeping in contact with her, though Madsen says they didn’t really have a plan set up.

She usually had daily afternoon phone chats with one daughter, who lives in Ventura County. She met up with family members who live in the area for breakfast on Saturday mornings.
Everyone knew Madsen, who had been a member of the Walnut Creek School board in the 1950s and 1960s, to be healthy and active, going on senior bus trips and regularly meeting up with friends for coffee and volunteering and socializing at one of the local senior centers (pictured above). “I go out a lot at night,” Madsen added.

So, when her Ventura County daughter didn’t reach her by phone for a couple days, the daughter assumed that her busy, active mother out and about. Still, she asked her Walnut Creek sister to pop by mom’s house before the Saturday morning breakfast meet-up. The Walnut Creek sister immediately knew something was wrong when she pulled up to the house and saw her mom’s car and several newspapers in the driveway.

Madsen spent three days in the hospital, recovering from dry skin and the equivalent of bed sores.

“It was a weird dumb stupid thing,” says Madsen, with a laugh. “I will never take another bath as long as I live.”

She adds that the family now has a plan, which is what she advises for every family with an elderly family member who lives on his or her own. In her family plan, she’ll call someone every morning, and if she doesn’t, someone will go check on her.

My 84-year-old mother doesn’t live alone. My husband, son and I live with her. A temporary situation following my husband’s diagnosis and breakdown turned into a permanent one. He and I needed to regroup, and then my father became ill and died in 2003. Meanwhile, my son settled into the neighborhood school, the very one I attended. This is not how I expected life to turn out, living in my childhood home, but I accept it as fate, destiny, whatever. Our post-World War II tract house is small, so it’s not always easy all of us living in one house, but we manage.

And it's probably for the best, mostly for the sake of my son and my mom. I’m not so sure my mom could live on her own. She misses my father , and she’d get lonely, even though she very much likes her alone time in the house. She’s in good health, can cook and clean for herself, and manages her finances. But she has problems with balance and has taken a couple falls. She can also be forgetful, and I’ve come home to find the stove left on. (Okay, I’ve done that once or twice myself.)

Anne, our 91-year-old neighbor, recently died. We all assumed she was in good health; up until a few years ago, she walked herself into downtown Walnut Creek to do her shopping. She also has family in the area, a son who lives in Lafayette, who would regularly stop by and take her out places.

Her death came suddenly. It was during the heat wave following Memorial Day weekend. A neighbor found Anne sitting on her front stoop, looking tired and wan. Anne said she had been suffering from diarrhea. The neighbor took her to the hospital, where she was admitted for severe dehydration. She died a few days later, apparently of a heart attack.

We live in one of Walnut Creek’s older neighborhoods, with a few residents who have lived in their homes a very long time and who now live by themselves, as far as I can tell. I don’t know any of these older women well, but they seem eager to stay independent, and I hope they have family or neighbors close to them who are keeping an eye out.

As Madsen says her family learned, it’s important for families to have a plan. What is yours?