Is it sex that’s keeping Granny going?

Is regular sex good for your brain as you get older?

The journal Age and Ageing published some research in 2016 on the effects of sex on the brains of older people called Sex on the brain! Associations between sexual activity and cognitivefunction in older age. 

The Journal of Gerontology has just published Frequent Sexual Activity Predicts Specific Cognitive Abilities in Older Adults, which says it ‘replicates and extends the findings’ of the first study.

Any article purporting to be about the science of sex makes for good headlines, but is the science any good? (Spoiler: No).

First, the Sex on the Brain research. Let’s set aside the dreadful title. Has anyone done research into the tendency of academic studies to make themselves sound like tabloid articles?

For the purposes of this study, ‘sexual activity could include intercourse, masturbation, petting or fondling’. I’m not sure what counts as petting and fondling except that there used to be signs at swimming pools saying: ‘No petting’.

The aim of the study is to explore ‘the relationship between cognition and sexual activity in healthy older adults’ (aged 50-89). The tests used were number sequencing and word recall. The findings were that ‘there were significant associations between sexual activity and number sequencing and recall in men. However, in women there was a significant association between sexual activity and recall, but not number sequencing’.

The word to keep in mind here is ‘association’. We’ll come to that.

People in the study were asked about sexual activity in the last 12 months. The findings were that ‘sexually active men and women to have significantly higher scores on the number sequencing and recall tests than sexually inactive men and women (all P < 0.001)’.

This is where the alarm bells start to go off.  

As all good skeptics know, correlation does not imply causation – or ‘association’ as the study calls it. That’s at the core of the problem with this research. Both studies admit this: ‘we can only speculate as to a causal relationship at this time’ and ‘we cannot infer a causal relationship between SA and cognitive function’. So all the studies are really saying is that people who say they have more sex when they are older do better on certain tests.

It’s important to have a control group when researching: people who did not receive the treatment or got a placebo or who didn’t do something to others did, for example. You need something to compare your results with.

The control group here is people not having regular sex. This might work if there were no other variables and confounding factors. But that’s not the case. It would be a much better indicator if the people who did score higher had no sex for 12 months and were then retested. Did their abilities change?

Another problem is that the average age of people having sex was 64.4 years and those not having sex was 72.9 years. That’s quite a big difference in terms of ageing; changes to the body over those 8.5 years are not considered. Women at the lower end of the age range were not asked if they had been through menopause, which can affect sexual activity and interest.

There was no indication of whether the participants were straight or LGBT, trans or cis.

The sample size is good, 3,060 men and 3,773 women, enough to produce significant results. But there were 2349 men who were having regular sex and only 711 who weren’t, which could skew the results.

A further problem with the research is that ‘sexually active men and women were more likely to have a higher level of education, be younger, wealthier, more physically active, not depressed, less lonely and have a better quality of life’.

This is where another klaxon goes off.

People with more money and a better education scored higher. They were also more likely to be living with a partner and so have easier access to sex. The study could just as well be called ‘Educated, wealthy old couples have more sex!’ (Not quite so catchy as titles go)

It could also have been called ‘People with depression, illness and loneliness have less sex!’ These conditions don’t just affect older people but everyone and can reduce sexual desire or activity.

Masturbation was included as sexual activity but not split into solo or mutual groups. So it could be that DIY is just as effective as sex with someone else – there’s no way of knowing from this study.

Both studies speculate that the cause could be the ‘potential cognitive enhancing effects of dopamine’ and ‘enhanced oxytocin release’. These two have been shown to improve cognitive functioning but levels were not measured in participants.

There’s also the problem of self-reporting. How honest were the answers?

The participants were not asked if they were having good quality sex or how their sexual activity had changed over time.

The second study replicated the findings of the first and tested for a wider range of cognitive functions. But there were only 73 participants (aged 50-83), not enough to be statistically significant. One of the tests was to list as many words beginning with F as possible. Don’t tempt me.

How are the media reporting these findings? One guess.

The Express says ‘University boffins have discovered older people can boost their brain power - by having more sex’ and thoughtfully includes a badly-drawn diagram on a sex position for people with arthritis. Props for using the word ‘boffins’ though, that always makes me laugh, especially in an article about sex. 

The Evening Standard goes with ‘Over-50s can boost their brain power by having more sex, new research has found’. That’s an interesting but not unexpected use of ‘found’.

The Daily Mail says ‘Sex is the key to staying sharp in old age!’ What are we to infer from the exclamation mark? That it’s a surprise? That old people are having sex? Or just that it’s about SEX!

So yes, the expected uncritical response because it’s SEX. And we all like to read about SEX. Or SEX! to be more accurate.

What do we take away from this research?

That some people do better on some cognitive tests than others and that they are likely to be better educated, wealthier and healthier. They also have more sex.

There’s no consideration for people who either can’t have sex or don’t want to and how articles like this might make them feel. The research is carefully neutral but the media coverage implies that people should be having sex to preserve cognitive faculties. It’s up to you, shag or go senile. No pressure.

As a positive takeaway, if you’re not having sex, your brain is not doomed to shrivel up. Dopamine levels can be increased through exercise, getting enough sleep, achieving goals (even small ones) and eating bananas. Oxytocin levels can be increased by holding hands, stroking pets, laughing, exercise and even looking at pictures of cute things.  So go eat a banana and look at some kittens.  


Appendage: The picture at the top is only vaguely linked to the subject but all the words I could think of to put into an image search would have taken me somewhere I may not have wanted to go.

Sex and Secularism

A new report called Sex and Secularism is, inevitably, being promoted as 'Atheists have better sex!' but, also inevitably, it's a bit more complicated than that.

The report, by Darrel Ray and Amanda Brown, is based on a survey of 9500 completed questionnaires by people over 18 who had 'lost' their religion and become secular/atheists. Most of the respondents were American but the survey covered 94 countries. Nearly one in five respondents were ex-Catholics but 20 religions and denominations were represented.

The report counters the possible objection that respondents were not really properly religious in the first place and details the struggles many had before losing their religion. Getting accurate, honest information about sex is harder than running a survey on which supermarket people use and there are ethical issues around this kind of research too. The findings are based on self-reporting by a self-selected group but significantly, they are consistent with data from a wide range of other research.

One quibble though is that the authors confuse/conflate atheism with secularism.

The central finding of the research was that religious people do pretty much everything the non-religious do but they feel much guiltier about it. People who grew up in the most religious homes reported feeling guilt nearly 80% of the time compared with 26% of non-religious. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. But they kept doing what they were doing anyway. Biology trumps doctrine every time.

Many religions see human nature as something bestial to be tamed, risen above or battered into submission. Sex is a necessary evil to keep the human race going but it would really be an awful lot better if we could do without it. It's not just Catholics who have a hard time squaring nature and faith according to the survey: Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostalists and Baptists have it worse while Unitarians and some Jews have a better time. One interesting little note is that people leaving New Age religions also report better sex after so tree hugging and tantric crystals aren't necessarily the path to good sex.

Despite many religions preaching the evils of masturbation, the message doesn't seem to be getting through. The Bible has the cautionary tale of Onan, damned because he shed his seed upon the ground. It doesn't have anything to say about women masturbating, perhaps because we're not wasting any eggs or perhaps because the writers of the Bible were all male and couldn't conceive of a woman having pleasure without a man. Assuming we're allowed to enjoy our bodies in the first place. Which we're not.

The survey found that 87% of the non-religious were masturbating by age 15 and 93% by age 18 (I'm rounding the percentages). Of the most religious, the figures are 83% and 90% - very little difference even though a fifth of them had been 'shamed or ridiculed' by their parents about it.

48% of the least religious had started petting by 15 and 84% by 18. For the most religious, it was 44% and 81%. (Petting is kissing, rubbing and touching - you may be old enough to remember when swimming pools had signs saying 'No running, no bombing, no petting').

Then the survey asked about oral sex - for some people a substitute for the 'real thing' to avoid pregnancy although still a potential source of STIs. For the non-religious in the same age brackets, it was 20% and 63%, for the religious 19% and 55%. What the survey doesn't say is whether boys are giving as well as receiving.

The religious start using porn a little later but their use was almost the same as the non-religious by age 25. The report found that the most religious US states and those with the most restrictive sexual legislation have the highest porn use.

The religious also fantasise nearly three times more than the non-religious and are nearly eight times more likely to feel they are doing something wrong. It's probably no surprise to many people that all these things are going on but the rates of incidence are more than might be expected. Which must make for some interesting sessions in the confession box and an awful lot of penance.

Finally, 18% and 62% of the non-religious had intercourse and 16% and 53% of the most religious. By age 21, it's 88% non-religious, 84% religious. So although they may be starting a little later, the religious are soon making up for lost time. The report also states that 95% of Americans have sex before marriage and it seems unlikely that the remaining 5% are all Baptist ministers. This of course raises the issue of hypocrisy, making very many allegedly upright religious people nothing but whited sepulchres.

One concern raised by this data is that the more secular got far better sex education than the religious. Instead of getting fact-based information, young religious people are getting far more knowledge from personal experience, porn and the internet. Sex education isn't all it could be but religion doesn't make it any easier for young people to get the facts or to explore and enjoy their sexuality safely.

The findings also reinforce existing data that abstinence teaching doesn't work; it delays first intercourse by a few months at best and increases the incidence of unprotected sex.

As a side bar: The Guttmacher Institute's survey of American women found that contraceptive use by Catholics and Evangelicals, is the widespread norm, not the exception, and only 3% of married Catholic women use natural family planning (the rhythm method) to avoid pregnancy.

So instead of teaching/forcing people to avoid any sexual activity, all that the strictest forms of religion do is breed ignorance, guilt and hypocrisy. You'd think they'd call in some marketing experts; any other corporate body that found its product was failing to reach its target market would rebrand and repackage, and find a new USP. The trouble is that sex has a much deeper market penetration than any religious message.

Back to the survey: the good news is that, after leaving their religion, guilty feelings about all things sexual decline very quickly and 60% of the formerly most religious felt every aspect of their sex lives had improved while 28% changed their sexuality. The assumption that a highly religious anti-sex upbringing will scar you for life doesn't appear to be true.

All of this is probably no consolation if you're a non-believer (or a secularist) with a lousy or non-existent sex life but at least the possibility of having much better sex is some consolation for burning in hell for all eternity.

Circumcision and sexual injuries

A study called Circumcision and Reduced Risk of Self-Reported Penile Coital Injuries published in the Journal of Urology recently looks at whether circumcision reduces the incidence of injuries to the penis during sex, which may increase the risk of HIV infection. It found that the incidence of injury was less in circumcised than uncircumcised men.


Between 2002 and 2005, 2,784 men aged between 18 and 24 in Kisumu, Kenya were randomized into two groups, immediate circumcision and delayed circumcision after two years.

Injuries were classified as 1) penis feels sore during sex 2) penis gets cuts, scratches or abrasions during sex and 3) penis bleeds after sex. At the start of the two-year period, 64.4% of the men reported injuries and 10.5% reported all three. Having two or more sex partners in the last 30 days, applying substances to the penis before sex and having ulcers increased the risk of injury. Increased age was associated with increased risk, possibly because of 'a broader range of sexual practises'.

Any conclusion that circumcision in itself reduces injury risk is not substantiated by the research, however.

Both groups had intensive STI and HIV risk reduction counseling and were provided with unlimited free condoms. The prevalance of STIs decreased, condom use increased and reporting multiple sex partners decreased. After two years, it was found that circumcision, condom use, being married or living with a partner and cleaning the penis within one hour of sex reduced injury.

At the beginning, the 64.4% reporting injuries split into 65.1% of circumcised and 60% of uncircumcised men. After two years, 31% of circumcised men and 42.8% of uncircumcised still reported injuries.

A few points:

The incidence of injury was almost the same in circumcised and uncircumcised men at the start of the trial which would suggest that it was something else that happened during the trial that caused the reduction.


The groups were not divided into men having sex with men and with women. The assumption is that all of the men's partners were female.


Injuries and sexual practices were self-reported. The types of sexual practice were not recorded. There was no enquiry into why injuries were so high to begin with or how conselling may have influenced sexual practices - or the self-reporting of them - although the conclusion admits the need to verify the injuries and questions whether familiarity with study questions may have had an influence. Why the injuries were not verified during a trial based on counting them and why familiarity was not factored in at the start are not clear if they were going to undermine the findings. It is also not possible to separate out the effects of counselling and condoms.

50% of circumcised men reporting injuries at the start were still reporting injuries at the end of the trial which suggests that other factors are involved in injury reduction.


There's a bit of an anomaly in the table showing condom use. At the start of the trial, 1010 men hadn't used condoms at their last sexual encounter; by the end of the trial, this had fallen to 259. However, 765 had used a condom the last time they had sex but two years later, this number had fallen to 275 so overall, the number of men using condoms had fallen.

Another point the research raises is that 'the high frequency of coital injuries in uncircumcised men could place sex partners of HIV positive uncircumcised men at greater risk for HIV acquisition'. However, even if circumcision does protect men, there is no good evidence yet that it helps prevent transmission from HIV positive men to women. A trial in Uganda reported in The Lancet found that rates of transmission to women increased with circumcised men. The trial had to be abandoned for ethical reasons.

The research concludes that 'circumcision, condom use and penile hygiene provided protection against reported penile coital injuries. (...) The mechanisms by which circumcision confers protection against penile coital injuries remains unknown'.

It also states that 'recent circumcision did not increase penile coital injury risk' and this is about all that it can be said to have found. Condoms, reducing the number of partners, counselling and washing are all said to reduce injury but circumcision in itself has not been demonstrated to do so independently of these other factors. Too many variables.

Evidence against circumcision for HIV prevention and the risks involved here, here and here.

UPDATE: An interesting comment on this article from Lay Science:
The big drop in injuries for both groups after six months in the study is a sign of the Hawthorne Effect - just going in a study makes a difference. The difference between the two groups after that has been excluded is relatively small.

They don't seem to mention the commonest penile injury to intact men, torn frenulum ("banjo string"). This usually happens once in a lifetime, if at all. It is hardly surprising if having a sensitive moving part on one's penis might make it (slightly) more prone to injury. Circumcision as a way to reduce penile injuries is not indicated.

This is only the latest in a steady stream of papers originating from the same few researchers (Daniel Halperin, Robert Bailey, Ronald Gray, Stefan Bailis, Stephen Moses, Malcolm Potts, Thomas Quinn, Maria Wawer, Helen Weiss, Brian Morris, Jeffrey Klausner, Edgar Schoen and Thomas Wiswell - in this case, Bailey) claiming to show that circumcision is good for everything and harms nothing. I wouldn’t call it a “conspiracy”, but many of them have authored papers jointly, and their common interest seems to be in promoting circumcision, rather than any particular benefit.