WAS IT BAD FOR YOU, TOO? THE Journal of the American Medical Association reported last week that 43 percent of American women and 31 percent of men experience problems in the bedroom. ""The stunning thing,'' says lead author Edward O. Laumann, ""is that everyone is at risk of sexual dysfunction, sooner or later. It's a myth that young, healthy people aren't going to have sexual problems.''
The new report revisits data Laumann and his team at the University of Chicago originally compiled in 1992 and published in two books in 1994. As part of a broad sex survey, they asked nearly 3,000 men and women whether, in the past year, they had gone through several months in which they lacked interest in sex, couldn't come to an orgasm, climaxed too quickly, felt pain during intercourse, didn't find sex pleasurable, had trouble getting physically aroused or fretted about their performance. The new report isolates the impact of factors such as age, diet and lifestyle.
The researchers found that sexual health is intimately tied to the rest of our mental and physical well-being. ""The same cholesterol and stress that we worry about for heart disease also cause sexual dysfunction'' because they affect circulation, says Michael Perelman, a New York psychologist and sex therapist. Cupid does play favorites, though. Married people fare better than singles (chart). In most categories, women had fewer problems as they got older; men often had more. Younger women tend to be in shorter relationships and be under more stress, both of which contribute to problems in bed. As they get older, they're quicker to tell partners what feels good and what doesn't. Educated or more affluent women, says Laumann, have less stress and better health care, and so fewer sexual woes. In aging men, circulatory problems can lead to impotence.
These trends reflect the different natures of male and female dysfunction. For many women, fixing the problem means fixing the relationship, ""establishing proper conditions for good sexuality,'' says Dr. Richard Kogan, a New York psychiatrist and sex therapist. Male dysfunction ""is better studied from a physiological standpoint.''
Most significant, sexual dysfunction coincides with deeper malaise. The data don't say whether bad sex causes the blues, or vice versa. But correcting for other factors, women who had trouble becoming aroused were five times as likely to be unhappy with their lives as those with no sexual problems. Men with erectile problems were more than four times as likely to be blue.
The Viagra boom has brought many of these men into treatment. Doctors hope the study will bring in more, both men and women. ""A lot of people come into my office thinking they're the only one,'' says Kogan. ""This normalizes it.''
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
