How Much Do You Know About Men’s Sexual Health?

It’s approximately 52 percent, according to urologist Abraham Morgentaler, the Blavatnik Faculty Fellow in Health and Longevity at Harvard Medical School and author of The Truth About Men and Sex. Causes of erectile dysfunction include high blood pressure, low testosterone, smoking, diabetes and performance anxiety. The condition can also be caused by depression, relationship conflicts and stress.

Of all those questions, “Why are you telling me this now?” may be the most important. According to certified sex therapist Sari Cooper, “This seems more about his needing to absolve himself of guilty feelings. … Forty years ago, he wasn’t thinking of you, but himself — and now he’s repeating it by burdening you.”

Sex therapist Rosara Torrisi suggests that women focus on their orgasms first, then on their partner’s. However, she adds, trying to make your orgasm “line up” or synchronize with your partner’s can be difficult.​

Every expert interviewed by AARP agreed that consent is the most important factor when it comes to sex with a cognitively impaired partner. “Consent is the same — no matter if you’re 20 or 50, if you have cognitive decline or don’t. If you cannot affirm that you have gotten proper consent, that’s where you back off,” says Padma Kandadai, a urogynecologist at Boston Medical Center.

According to the American Medical Association, they’ve more than doubled among those 65 and up in the last decade.​