Elderly and their conception about sexuality

Abstract

Population ageing has been motivating the development of studies about the distinct affects that involves oldness, including sexuality and places of socialization. Collective activities may favour the elderly expression of sexuality. This study has the objective of apprehending and analyzing the perception of elderly about sexuality. Our option is to study the aged that use to take part into groups. It is a qualitative and analytical research, and 12 elderly, with age between 62 and 86 years-old were the actors of it. For data collection we used open interview. Information analysis followed the steps re¬commended for thematic analysis. Results show that the involvement of elderly in collective activities favours the occurrence of dates and consolidation of relationships. This condition allows them to enjoy new emotions, what open the doors for sexuality. Even though there are taboos related to sexuality in third age, we can notice that elderly who are part of these groups explain that sexuality is an amount of attitudes and feelings for the partner, like kindness expression, such as the kiss, the touch, the glance, to hear and understand what the other one speaks, even if he does not say a word. Sexuality is be with the partner, be glad about life, be able to have fun and be happy, which includes intercourse. We can conclude that elderly have a considerable knowledge about this theme, showing they are not identified anymore with ideas penetrated by prejudice about sexuality in third age.