SEXUALITY AND AGING: SEXUAL CAPACITY IN THE MALE
Although age-related endocrine and reproductive tract changes in males are less obvious than those in females, aging males demonstrate more pronounced declines in sexual functioning.
When compared with younger men, males fifty-five and older show decreases in the amount of precoital mucus secreted in the urethral canal. The source of this mucus is generally believed to be the Cowpers glands which become less active with age. The Kinsey self-report data showed relative amounts of mucus secreted by males at various ages. The average amount for males in their twenties and thirties was slightly more than three times as much as for men in their fifties and sixties. Although there were individual differences in the amounts of these secretions at every age, Kinsey suggested that the amount of mucus secreted was related to the intensity of erotic stimulation and that lowered secretions in older men represented increased thresholds for stimulation and declining arousal levels as well as glandular changes themselves. Older men generally have reduced amounts of ejaculate and the force of ejaculation as measured by expelled distance and subjective report is diminished (Masters and Johnson). Declining volume of ejaculate can be tied to declining secretory activity of reproductive accessory structures (primarily the prostate and seminal vesicles), but force of ejaculation is influenced by the changing character of penile contractions. Young males were observed to expel seminal fluid twelve to twenty-four inches from the urethral meatus; in men over fifty, the maximum distances were from six to twelve inches (Masters and Johnson). Instead of the usual recurrent, expulsive penile contractions which forcefully propel the ejaculate, older males tend to develop spastic contractions. Although contractions occur at the same intervals (0.8 seconds), older men have fewer of them and with protracted penile erection, ejaculate often “seeps out.” The viscosity of ejaculate from older males is generally lower than that found in younger men.
There are a number of behavioral changes in male sexual activity. Penile erection is typically slower for older men. For males under forty, ten seconds is the typical reaction time; young men can demonstrate full erection in from three to five seconds of sexual stimulation. The reaction time is doubled or tripled for men in their fifties and above (Masters and Johnson). Older men also show a decline in the number of ejaculations per fixed unit of time; the number of ejaculations declines from its peak in late adolescence (four to eight per day are not unusual) to an average of slightly less than two per week in the fifties to less than one per week in the sixties and thereafter (Kinsey). Kinsey reported that the number of males capable of multiejaculation decreased with age. In his sample, 15 to 20% of the sample reported the occurrence of multiple ejaculations in the teens. Only 3% of men in their sixties and older reported this behavior. The greatest proportional decline in Kinsey’s sample occurred in the late thirties and early forties.
The erectile refractory period following ejaculation increases progressively from minutes in the teens (Kaplan and Sager) to about a half hour in the thirties to eight to twenty-four hours in the fifties. Many males in their fifties and sixties experience paradoxical refractory periods in which loss of erection in protracted sexual encounters results in a wait of from twelve to twenty-four hours before erection can be attained again. This “refractory period” resembles that following ejaculation although ejaculation did not take place.
Penile erection under coital stimulation can be maintained longer by older men (Masters and Johnson). This age-related increase in latency to ejaculate may be a function of both previous coital experience and decreased sensitivity to erotic stimulation.
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