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Both morning erections and nocturnal emissions occur less frequently with age. Kinsey reported the median frequencies of morning erections at two per week in the thirties, one per week by age sixty-five and two per month in the late sixties. In a Sexology study reported by Rubin, 57% of a sample of sixty-five to sixty-nine-year-old males who were being treated for impotence claimed to have some morning erections. Rubin used these data to suggest that in many of these men the etiology of impotence was psychological. Kinsey reported that 71% of single males in their early twenties had nocturnal emissions. For both married and single men, emissions declined in frequency after age thirty. By fifty, about 30% of males interviewed had emissions but less frequently than in earlier years. Maximum frequencies per week recorded by Kinsey were twelve in the teens, three in the thirties, and less than one (.5) in the fifties. Only 14% of the men over sixty were still having any nocturnal emissions.
Scrotal elevation which occurs for younger males in the late excitement or early plateau phase of the sexual response cycle is attenuated for men over fifty-five. Full scrotal elevation prior to ejaculation is not always observed, and testicular descent following ejaculation may be extremely rapid. Past age fifty-five, the testicles often do not show the usual 50% increase in size due to vasocongestion. Penile detumescence during the resolution phase often occurs extremely rapidly following ejaculation rather than in the two stages typical of younger men (Masters and Johnson).
Erectile impotence is quite rare in males under age thirty-five. In Kinsey’s sample less than .005% under twenty-five and 1% under thirty-five suffered from erectile failure. For these young men, the condition frequently was transitory. However, Kinsey observed an increasing proportion of erectilly impotent males at ages above fifty. These proportions at fifty, seventy, and seventy-five years were 8%, 27%, and 55%, respectively. The degree to which generally poor health and other physical factors contribute to the rising proportions of impotence is unknown.
A number of behavioral changes in sexual activity (increased latency to ejaculate, increased reaction time for penile erection, decreases in precoital mucus) suggest that aging males lose sensitivity to stimulation or that their thresholds for erotic stimulation increase with age. Alterations in collagen and elastic tissues of the skin may contribute to increases in the threshold of cutaneous sensitivity (Magladery). The loss of accessory structures’ ability to maintain recurring penile contractions probably contributes to a diminished sense of satisfaction at ejaculation. Kinsey’s erotic responsiveness ratings by age showed that with advancing years responsiveness (or sensitivity) decreased. The average indexed responsiveness figure for males thirty to thirty-five was about fourteen; this figure fell to six by the mid-fifties, to four by the late sixties, and went to zero for persons over seventy.
*99/187/5*
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