Did you know that sexually transmitted infections are on the rise in retirement homes? How about that some gay men who get the right to marry are apparently more likely to indulge in affairs, with the knowledge and consent of their partners?
This is the kind of thing that fascinates , an associate professor of sociology and resident 鈥渟expert.鈥�
鈥淚 wanted to embarrass my mother,鈥� Carpenter jokes when asked why she picked sex as her primary research interest.
鈥淎ctually, I was originally interested in gender,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut there was this interesting time in the mid-1990s when Time and 狐狸视频week ran cover stories about born-again virgins. It was a real culture shock moment for me, and it got me to thinking how people鈥檚 opinions are very diverse about sexuality.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 good and what鈥檚 bad, what鈥檚 wholesome and not so wholesome, culturally speaking, that was all kind of up for grabs.鈥�
Carpenter subsequently wrote her dissertation about the loss of virginity, leading to her book . Her most recent project was co-editing (with John DeLamater of the University of Wisconsin-Madison)
The book, published by New York University Press, is the result of efforts by Carpenter and like-minded colleagues to expand the study of sex beyond the snapshots-style research that has dominated in the past.
鈥淩esearchers have tended to zero in on topics like adolescent sexuality or sex in the gay community, little snapshots that could be broken off and analyzed,鈥� she said.
The trouble with that approach is the loss of the big picture within individual lives, the panorama of one sexual experience impacting another and having a cumulative effect.
鈥淚f you have an unpleasant virginity loss experience and feel bad about yourself afterwards, you may be less choosy about your next sex partner, who might not care about you or giving you pleasure,鈥� Carpenter said.
鈥淭hat might set you up for another situation where you鈥檙e unable to communicate about sex. People who aren鈥檛 able to communicate about sex are among other things, more likely to get sexually transmitted infections. Having a chronic sexually transmitted infection can be a pretty unpleasant thing, and certainly affects how you might respond to later partners and how they might relate to you.鈥�
On the other hand, a positive experience losing virginity has its own consequences.
鈥淥nce you have an orgasm it鈥檚 pretty hard to un-have an orgasm,鈥� Carpenter said. 鈥淭hat causes one to recognize something about the possibilities of sex. But amassing lots of sexual experience can have downsides, too.鈥�
The primary problem in pursuing life course sexuality studies is lack of data.
鈥淲e generally haven鈥檛 had the luxury of following people鈥檚 sex lives for 50 or 60 years. It鈥檚 much more common 鈥� and much easier 鈥� to do a survey of teenagers in a high school at any given moment,鈥� Carpenter said.
Better data is still a ways off for logistical reasons, but researchers who take a longer-road perspective are already showing intriguing results. has an essay in Sex for Life on 鈥淧leasure in Old Age鈥� about the growing population of people 90 and older.
鈥淎 lot of adult children of older parents are aghast that their widowed dad who is 85 and in assisted living is fooling around with another resident down the hallway,鈥� Carpenter said. 鈥淏ut under the right circumstances, it could be quite a fulfilling relationship for those two old people.鈥�
Complicating matters, the current generation of assisted living residents hail from the pre-AIDS era and might not think to use condoms so long after their childbearing years. That has led to increased sexually transmitted infections in nursing homes.
Carpenter鈥檚 own next research project will focus on chronic disease and sexuality. There has already been research on the impact of breast and prostate cancer on the sex lives of women and men, respectively.
Carpenter would like to know more about how common diseases such as diabetes and congestive heart failure impact sex life.
鈥淎 lot of medications for heart disease and for blood pressure affect sexual response,鈥� Carpenter said. 鈥淎lso, there are some people who have diabetes and have to wear an insulin pump on their bodies and others, at the extreme stages of the disease, may lose limbs. That has to affect someone鈥檚 sex life.鈥�
Of course, any discussion of sex is fraught with complications. There are some stakeholders with a political or moral agenda who aren鈥檛 interested in evidence that contradicts their viewpoint.
鈥淵ou find this in the abstinence-only sex-ed movement,鈥� Carpenter said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a growing body of evidence that it doesn鈥檛 prevent most teenagers from eventually having sex before they鈥檙e married, while it does make them less likely to practice safer sex or use contraception, so they鈥檙e more likely to get sexually transmitted infections. But those findings haven鈥檛 changed the approach of people who believe abstinence-only is right for moral reasons.鈥�
One giant factor is propelling studies of sexual behavior forward, Carpenter said. That鈥檚 the self-interest of the millions of baby boomers who are starting to face their mortality.
鈥淣ot only are they looking at their own parents and realizing they have to deal with aging, but they鈥檙e realizing that old age is going to happen to them,鈥� Carpenter said. 鈥淎nd they don鈥檛 want to be asexual people, no matter how they feel about how other generations may have approached sex in later life.鈥�