A new study at Oregon State U. questions previous notions about men and women and their social relationships – including sexual problems.
Research has shown that less than half of older men and women who have a sexual problem talk to their doctors about it, although men were more likely to than women, according to Professor Alexis Walker, the Jo Anne L. Petersen Chair in gerontology and family sciences at OSU. However, many of those that did talk to their doctor felt that it didn’t help.
“This was our most unexpected outcome,” said Ryo Hirayama, a Ph.D. student in Oregon State University’s department of human development and family sciences. “Older adults are advised to talk to their doctors about sexual health issues, but not all people do, and talking with a physician is not as helpful as you might expect.”
The research for this study began in the fall of 2008, after Hirayama obtained access to the results of a government-funded study called the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project (NSHAP). Hirayama is doing his doctoral studies on male identity issues and men’s social ties in current society.
In 2005 and 2006, researchers from the University of Chicago, the headquarters of the project, conducted more than 3,000 interviews nationally with people aged 57 to 85. NSHAP asked people how social they were and what activities interested them, as well as about physical and mental health issues.
They specifically asked if the people had experienced any sexual problems, including a lack of interest, trouble maintaining an erection, physical pain during sex or lubrication issues, and asked each person to rate their problem from one to three, with three being the worst.
Hirayama was only interested in studying married couples, or people in a relationship and living together, who experienced at least one sexual problem. As it turned out, 861 of the 3,000-plus people who were interviewed were experiencing at least one sexual problem.
The study showed that men who talk about their sexual problems with friends and spouses were much happier than those who did not. This was not the case with women. Again, this finding came as a surprise.
“The finding is striking, because most people presume men do not have confidants,” Hirayama said. “Men are not believed to be functioning socially in our society, yet research increasingly shows that social networks can be a critical part of a man’s life, especially as he ages.”
The question that remains, though, is why do older men feel better after confiding in close friends or talking with their spouses, but women do not?
“Men and women have different sexual problems,” Walker said. “Sexual issues are a social relationship issue, not a medical issue.”
So, finding a cure through medicine isn’t going to solve that problem. Walker suggests that couples maintain an open dialogue about what is most important to them in the relationship. This can help turn a sexual issue into a minor problem by emphasizing something else in the relationship that is equally important to both partners.
The study conducted by Walker and Hirayama will be featured in the social science section of “The Journals of Gerontology,” Series B, sometime later in the summer.
For their next research study, Hirayama and Walker will be looking at the effect a sexual problem can have on a partner, instead of focusing on how a person deals with their own sexual problem.
Since they believe that sexual problems between partners is a social relationship issue and not a medical problem, their theory is that people are, in fact, affected by their partner having a problem. Perhaps they’ll find a few more surprises in their next study.