The Swinging 60-, 70- and 80-somethings
The swinging sixties are back, but this time it’s people in their 60s, 70s and beyond who are embracing free love – with potentially dangerous consequences.
Older singles must have missed the lecture about safe sex, according to American oncologist Ezekiel Emanuel, who wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times recently:
“Combine retirement communities, longer life, unfamiliarity with condoms and Viagra – and what do you get? You get an STD epidemic among the Social Security generation that rivals what we imagine is happening on those Animal House fraternities.”
Rates of sexually transmitted diseases among seniors have soared in recent years. Between 2007 and 2011, chlamydia infections among Americans aged 65 and over increased by 31 per cent, and syphilis by 52 per cent – figures on par with trends in the 20- to 24-year-old age group. There’s a similar story in Australia and Britain.
Research from our own University of New England in 2012 found chlamydia cases amoong FiftyUps doubled between 2004 and 2010.
The figures “demand that seniors take responsibility for their actions,” Emanuel wrote. He called for doctors to talk to their older patients about STDs and retirement communities to employ safe sex counsellors and make condoms readily available.
