Sex in Midlife: Women's Sexual Experiences in Lesbian and Straight Marriages.

Abstract

This study examines how married straight and lesbian women understand sexual changes in midlife. Sexual satisfaction is key to marital quality, yet marital sex typically diminishes in midlife. Little is known, however, about how married straight and lesbian women make sense of midlife sexuality. Comparing the narratives of lesbian and straight women can reveal how midlife events, relational contexts, and gender norms drive women's experiences of and responses to diminishing sex. Inductive and deductive analyses were performed on interviews with a convenience sample of 16 straight and 16 lesbian mostly high-status married couples in Massachusetts. Lesbian and straight women suggest that sexual activity and desire diminish over time due to health, aging, and caregiving events, yet lesbian women additionally emphasize the importance of weight gain, caregiving for adult parents, and shared experiences of menopause. Women further describe distress when their sex lives diverge from norms specific to marriage and their sexual identities. Moreover, women report relationship work designed to maintain or reignite sex; when compared with straight women, lesbians describe more work and a stronger sense of duty to keep sex alive and uniquely describe medical providers as unhelpful in addressing sexual challenges. The results suggest that relational contexts and cultural discourses shape straight and lesbian women's experiences of distress and comfort about diminishing sex in marriage.