Lauren Harris

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, there is a level of truth to it.

It's more that STIs are increasing among older adults.

It's not at the same rate that we see for younger people.

It's the increase that's the alarming part of it.

So it's not super high rates.

It's just growing a little faster than it's healthy.

We would think of older adults not having STIs or STDs.

And not only is it there, it's increasing.

Yeah, it's a great question.

So, yeah, we desexualize older adults and that kind of allows older adults to also desexualize themselves.

And so we found that other researchers found that doctors aren't talking to older adults about sex and older adults are not asking.

So there's just there's a lack of conversation happening between older adults and medical providers about sexual health.

And so part of that is STIs.

Part of that is also like heart health or other physical issues, cholesterol, you know, how this is impacting the body, how ED medications are going to impact the body.

And so older adults can feel uncomfortable talking to their medical provider because of a stigma of desexualization that they feel like,

They are not sexual beings.

It's weird.

It's uncomfortable.

Nobody wants to talk about it.