Lauren Harris

But we are not interested in thinking about our grandparents having sex.

It just kind of weirds us out a little bit.

Oh, it's important for sure.

So I will say, so my research focuses on single older adults.

So we're talking about people who are getting into the dating market again after 20, 30, 40 years of being married, maybe recently divorced or widowed.

And so we're talking about people who are, or my research is about people who are single.

And they are consistent.

I interviewed 100 people.

I believe it was 97 said sex was important in their relationship, that they wanted a relationship that was inclusive of a sexual relationship.

They said time and time again that any relationship that did not include sex was a friendship and they had plenty of friends.

They weren't looking for more friends.

It was very important to them.

They were not interested in dating anybody who wasn't interested in sex, who couldn't have sex, who sort of was past that point in their life.

They were adamant that they were only looking for a romantic relationship if that relationship was also sexual.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

It was interesting.

Some prior work, not my own, found that married couples later years do have less sex over time.

And part of that is because they already have a strong foundation.

They already have the emotional connection, the emotional intimacy, that sex is more about maintaining that relationship.