It is a surprise to most younger people that an appreciable minority of people aged 65 to 85 continue to have an active sex life of one sort or another, and did so even before the days of Viagra.

The recent statistics published in the New England Journal of Medicine, arguably the most influential international medical journal, are broadly in line with other research into sex and the elderly, not all of which has been collected with such care.

It is important to differentiate, as the study does, between those older people still having penetrative sex and those who are practising other forms of sexual activity, including that known as close bodily contact. This may be no more than a sexually orientated cuddle.

The potency rates with penetrative and orgasm are, as the research shows, lower than the overall figure for sexual activity. Most surveys carried out in the past have tended to discount those occasions in which the sex has not been penetrative. This difference may account for the higher frequency of sexual activity in the oldest group, which is usually said to be closer to once a month than two or three times a month.

Viagra, Cialis and Levitra have enabled many people to continue penetrative sex to a later age than was formerly possible, but it is more common for sexual activity, including penetration, to be abandoned for medical reasons than for loss of libido.

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