Happy Basket sounds as if it should be the name of a gay Chinese restaurant, but it isn’t—at least not to my knowledge. It’s a custom that I was introduced to when I attended a local Kiwanis meeting several weeks ago. After the Pledge of Allegiance, the non-denominational, non-inspirational invocation and the unappetizing greasy eggplant parmesan, I was introduced to the Happy Basket. Similar to a church collection container it was an actual basket that was brought person to person by a club member during the meeting. The protocol was for each member to put a dollar in the basket and then announce what they were personally happy for on that particular day.

Although not a member, I put a dollar in the basket and proudly announced that I was happy that according to the senior sex survey reported in that morning’s New York Times, I was normal. From the laughter of the attendees it was obvious that many of them had read the same article reporting on "A Study of Sexuality and Health among Older Adults in the United States," published in the New England Journal of Medicine of August 23, 2007.

Many people believe that sex among older Americans is an oxymoron. Most of us reach adolescence feeling that sex is a unique individual discovery and that parental sexual activity was limited to the production of whatever number of chicks populate the family coop. Likewise, young adults see not only sex among seniors as an oxymoron they see life after forty as an oxymoron and sixty is like hieroglyphics, a part of antiquity. Now comes the University of Chicago report based on in-person surveys of 3,005 adults ranging in age from 57 to 85 years old and guess what? Sex doesn’t stop at sixty. Of course, those of us who left sixty in the dust years ago have known that for a long time. But it’s nice to have it academically confirmed.

According to the survey, sexual activity declined slightly with age but even in the 75 to 85 year group more than half reached the sexual stratosphere at least two to three times a month and 23% reported having sex at least once a week. Not bad at eighty-five.

Nearly 60% of the study group under 65 said that they had engaged in oral sex in the previous twelve months, compared with 31% of the over 75s. That drop-off in oral sex, from 60% to 31% over a ten year span, may represent denture problems in the oldest segment of the study. But I’ve been told that denture-less oral sex is really special—hopefully to be reported on in the next study. 52% of the men and 25% of the women within an intimate relationship reported masturbating in the previous twelve months.

Actually, while I told the Kiwanis Club members that the survey proved I was normal, it was a lie. The survey made no attempt to define "normal" for seniors; instead, the researchers reported the percentage of the study population involved in various sexual behaviors with enough interesting statistics that every senior reader will be able to place himself or herself somewhere in the sex survey spectrum.

Not surprisingly, overall health played a large roll in senior’s sexual activity as it does in anyone’s sexual activity. While not reported on, I suspect that some seniors have accepted as fact the perception in the general population that seniors don’t have sex— which in turn has affected their own sexual activity. Disturbingly, only 38% of men and 22% of women reported having discussed sex with a physician since the age of fifty which may reflect a lingering Puritanical attitude among seniors that sex is an inappropriate subject to discuss with their doctor. More disturbing, however, is the possibility—or the likelihood—that physicians still aren’t comfortable discussing sex with a patient that is old enough to be their parent or grandparent. That needs to change. Both physicians and patients must recognize that sexual health is as important to overall health as blood pressure or cholesterol.

Knowledge of the range of sexual performance and experience among seniors is particularly important as the Baby Boomer population continues to age and join the senior ranks. As the first reputable academic (University of Chicago National Social Life, Health and Aging Project) comprehensive national survey of sexuality among older adults in the United States, I hope that the project will continue and expand. Perhaps in the next survey they will break out the data for gay and lesbian seniors. My suspicion from cruising gay websites and local bars focused on seniors is that gay seniors may be more sexually active than their straight contemporaries. But, like the now famous TV ad of the 800 pound gorilla in the room, "What do I know?" I’m just a gay senior reader and writer headed toward eighty.