A new study has revealed that while younger Americans are cheating less, older Americans are cheating more. That’s right, people in their 50’s and 60’s are the biggest cheaters! Married cheating site Ashley Madison is booming with baby boomers.
Nicholas H. Wolfinger , a Professor of Family and Consumer Studies and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the University of Utah, analyzed the data from the Institute For Family Studies, which asked “Have you ever had sex with someone other than your husband or wife while you were married?”
“Most married Americans remain committed to monogamy,” he says “but the mounting age difference is noteworthy and statistically significant. The data suggests that the trend toward extramarital sex is being driven by people in their 50’s and 60’s. Additional analysis of the GSS data (General Social Survey) reveals that most of these people have been married for between 20 and 30 years. Once survey respondents enter their seventies,” he notes, “rates of extramarital sex decline considerably.” By that time, you’re too tired to cheat.
“The second insight is more complex,” he says. “Do people in their 50’s and 60’s have the most extramarital sex because they’re in midlife and have been married for 20-30 years, or because they came of age at a time that fostered greater sexual exploration?” he asks. “The answer is probably “both.”
By the time you’ve been married to someone for 30 years, you could be sexually bored, or just sick of each other.
Wolfinger notes that “One inducement to do so may have been the proliferation of Viagra and other medications for erectile dysfunction, which only came on the market 20 years ago.”
According to our medical statistics, urologists say that at age 50, 50% of men suffer from erectile dysfunction and 60% of men in their 60’s suffer from it. But thanks to Viagra, Cialis, penile pumps and implants, they can cheat, still get it up, and get it on.
One interesting finding of the study was that while people cheat, they disapprove of other people cheating. “Either people’s attitudes don’t match their behavior–a classic story in the social sciences, he says, “or we’re witnessing sexual inequality. According to the past 30 years of the General Social Survey (GSS), three out of every four American adults think extramarital sex is always wrong. Perhaps some of this disapproval reflects the comparably high rates of extramarital sex 50-somethings and 60-somethings have been observing in their peers.”
“No matter how many polyamorists there are nowadays, old-fashioned adultery probably has risen among older Americans,” he concludes.