When It Comes to Sex, Boomers Keep It Up
We Baby Boomers must still have enough disposable income (or at least high enough credit card limits) that the New York Times Magazine (when I worked at a very low level job at The New Yorker my colleagues sniffed that it should be called the New York Times Sunday Color Advertising Supplement) will devote whole issues to flattering us. By stroking Boomer egos, the Times hopes that we will eagerly flip through the ads for the high priced merchandise that decorate its pages. The current issue devoted to the New Middle Ages is a case in point (and No, the magazine is not predicting the onset of a new Medieval age).
At this point, the younger folks may want to avert their eyes because I'm about to cite some Times statistics on Boomer sex. The Times reports:
73 percent of American men and 65 percent of American women 40 or older say they find sex physically very pleasurable.
That is true of 58 percent of men and 56 percent of women in Sweden [and] 43 percent of men and 32 percent of women in Italy [and] 18 percent of men and 10 percent of women in Japan.
Hmmm–perhaps the Japanese numbers are part of the explanation for that country's falling population.
The Times also reports other fun Boomer sex survey results.
74 percent of Americans 40 and older report having had sexual intercourse in the last 12 months versus 94 percent in China, 80 percent in India and 58 percent in Britain.
As a self-indulgent Boomer I can't think of any relevant public policy issue here except maybe that the last set of statistics indicates that we're falling behind some of our international competitors in this area?