Article: Pop Tart from women24

In case you missed it, there's been yet another Miley Cyrus sexy photo scandal blown out of any semblance of proportion. As another 24.com columnist pointed out when the first set of photos surfaced, "to pretend that a 15-year old girl hasn't allowed the thought of her own sexuality to enter her head, regardless of her religious affiliation is silly."

In bloom vs in bloomers
But if there's one thing that gets people's knickers in more of a knot than the thought of young sexuality, it's old sexuality. Our culture seems very strict on the guidelines of who gets to have sex and when. Not before 16, but definitely not after 70, if you please, cos, you know, that's just gross.

There are some solid reasons kids under 16 shouldn't be having sex (even with each other) from still developing emotional maturity to heightened risks of cervical cancer and the life-derailing possibility of teen pregnancy, not forgetting that little technical detail that it's illegal.

But it's much more difficult to justify why consenting adults of retirement age should have to retire their sex life as well as their day jobs – especially when they suddenly have all that free time on their hands.

Partly, it's the icky idea of our parents having sex full stop but also the false notions our culture entertains about the elderly, as sweetly sanitised versions of their former selves – more of the baking cookies for grandkids, less of the playing hide the sausage with the attractive greyhair next door.

Friskier than ever
It's a popular myth-conception that people lose their interest in sex as they age. A spate of recent studies (including one last week from Sweden ) shows that, surprise! older people are just as keen on sex as their younger, springier-jointed counterparts.

Between Viagra and our culture's increasingly liberated sexual mores, the studies show that more oldsters are getting it on with less guilt and more enjoyment than ever before – and it's good for them.

A healthy sex life comes with all kinds of psychological and physical benefits, from providing a cardiovascular workout to upping the serotonin levels in the brain and providing the emotional wellbeing that comes with intimacy.

But that's not to say there aren't sometimes issues.

A wrinkle in the issue
Sex is complicated, whatever your age, but it can be made more complicated when one or both parties are of sound (and willing) body, but not necessarily sound mind.

In the US, some 50% of older folk in nursing homes suffer from some degree of Alzheimers or dementia. It can make sexual relations a lot trickier to navigate because it's harder to determine consent when the participants may be suffering from various degrees of confusion and forgetfulness or a lack of awareness of their behaviour.

It all came to a head recently in a much publicised old age home skandaal in America where a couple, Dorothy (82) and Bob (95) were forcibly separated after Bob's son walked in to discover that Dorothy "had her mouth on my dad's penis! And it wasn’t even clean."

Bob's son's squeamishness probably reveals a lot about why the heartbroken couple were broken up, but Dorothy's Alzheimers meant it wasn't as clear-cut as it should have been.

It's a problem that nursing home administrators and families are struggling to come to terms with, in some cases banning any sexual behaviour outright, in more moderate and sane instances, laying out guidelines, allowing sex between long-term partners or spouses or between two willing partners who both suffer dementia to the same degree and sometimes even designating a "sexual guardian" to make the call if cognitive functioning declines dramatically.

Sex that lasts and lasts
Complications aside, what it boils down to is that sex is fun. And it doesn't stop being fun just because you hit an artificially imposed marker called age. Younger folk might not want to see old people porn or even think about it too much, but one day we're all going to be shuffling around in those slippers – and wouldn't it be great to still be able to bounce around in bed between the bouts of boules and bingo?