The Oprah Winfrey Show
Oprah's Best Life Series
Harpo Films
For One More Day
The Great Debaters
O, The Oprah Magazine
Subscribe Today
Oprah Radio
Oprah's Angel Network
Oprah's Book Club
1 of 6
Body Image in the Bedroom
Heyday Over?
Koch and colleagues studied about 300 heterosexual women for a decade. The women were 35 to 55 years old. Most were white and college educated.
The women took surveys about their sex lives. They were also asked if they were more, less, or as attractive as a decade ago.
No matter how young or old the women were, they tended to report having been more attractive 10 years earlier. That sense of faded attractiveness was linked to less frequent sex and a drop in sexual desire.
"Women definitely receive messages in the culture that as they age they're less attractive and that can be interpreted as less sexual as well," Koch says. Unrealistic standards of attractiveness in the media are one such influence, she says.
Koch and colleagues studied about 300 heterosexual women for a decade. The women were 35 to 55 years old. Most were white and college educated.
The women took surveys about their sex lives. They were also asked if they were more, less, or as attractive as a decade ago.
No matter how young or old the women were, they tended to report having been more attractive 10 years earlier. That sense of faded attractiveness was linked to less frequent sex and a drop in sexual desire.
"Women definitely receive messages in the culture that as they age they're less attractive and that can be interpreted as less sexual as well," Koch says. Unrealistic standards of attractiveness in the media are one such influence, she says.
Oprah.com Resources
SOURCES: Koch, P. The Journal of Sex Research, August 2005; vol 42: pp 215-223. Patricia Bartholow Koch, PhD, associate professor of biobehavioral science and women's studies, Pennsylvania State University. News release, Pennsylvania State University. Reuters.
© 2008 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.
