Research suggests people of all ages are having less sex than 20 years ago. Photo by Getty Images

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Sex can take on new meaning as people grow older, particularly when it comes to frequency. But the amount of sex adults are having today may not necessarily be how often they want to be physically intimate.

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A 2015 study led by then-University of Toronto social psychologist and researcher Amy Muise, based on data collected from over 25,000 Americans across four decades, found that having sex once a week is enough to keep couples happy and satisfied.

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While that number still rings true for couples in long-term relationships, sexual frequency is in decline among both the young and old, noted Lori Brotto, a Vancouver-based psychologist and professor in the University of British Columbia’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

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“In terms of sweet spot, what we do have is data on what people tell us in terms of their average frequency of sex,” Brotto said. “First of all, people are having less sex today than they were 20 years ago. There’s now been probably four or five studies looking at different large datasets that have shown that same phenomenon over and over.

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“And it’s not just among older people, it’s among younger people as well. So that’s really important. And on average, people in long-term relationships are having sex about once a week. Or around like 50 or so times a year,” Brotto said.

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But that might not be how frequently people want to be having sex, she added. “And that’s the true empirical question — how much sex do people want to be having? That’s one number. And then how much are they actually having? And that’s a much smaller number.”

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Research conducted by the Journal of Sexual Medicine suggests that low sexual desire affects 40 per cent of women aged 40-59 years and 30 per cent of men. Among women, those who were post-menopausal were more likely to report experiencing low desire, vaginal pain and vaginal dryness, according to the study.

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Brotto, who wrote the 2018 book Better Sex Through Mindfulness: How Women Can Cultivate Desire, believes that learning to stay in the moment can help improve low desire, particularly among women.

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“Sometimes and oftentimes the contributors to the low desire are quite psychological, social — so things like chronic stress, depression, anxiety, worried thoughts, not being in the present moment, being distracted, multitasking. All of those things can be major contributors to low desire,” Brotto said.

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“And then you layer on top of that, oftentimes what women say is, negative body image, self-judgments, performance concerns in the moment.

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She said mindfullness when it comes to sex is about cultivating the skills to “be present” in a nonjudgmental way. “And not thinking about, ‘Is my partner going to notice that I’ve gained five pounds?’ … ‘Did I lock the front door or did I turn the oven off?’”