Sexuality, midlife, and menopause

Abstract

Women attending menopause clinics often complain of increasing sexual problems 1 But clinical experience is known to be based on a small proportion of self-selecting, predominantly ill women and may not be representative of most women’s experience [2,3]. Population-based surveys can help address the question of a link between aging, menopause, and sexuality. Aging and length of the relationship are known to affect sexual functioning of both men and women. For example, James [4] used cross-sectional and longitudinal data to show that coital rate halved over the first year of marriage and then took another 20 years to halve again. Studies that have included women of disparate ages have found a..