Older, richer and wiser women have better sex

As it turns out, there may be a reason for Sex and the City character Samantha Jones’ emancipated sex life.

“Money is power. Sex is power,” says Jones, a PR exec played by Kim Cattrall on the show.

And power, in the form of money and education, leads to better sex for older women, a McGill graduate student’s research has found.

PhD candidate Annie Xiaoyu Gong and her team found that the richer and more educated older women are, the better their sex lives.

“Women are at a more disadvantaged position in society and having those social resources, as well as economic resources, improves their satisfaction,” said Gong, 27, who is presenting the findings at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences held at the University of Calgary this week.

“They’re definitely more empowered in the relationship, which leads to higher satisfaction.”

The study is based on a data analysis of 3,377 men and women between 55 and 85 years old surveyed in 2010 and 2011 by the National Social Life and Aging Project in the U.S.

Those factors transcend marital status, Gong said, though both married men and women reported being more sexually satisfied than their single peers.

Many studies have looked into the correlation between women’s sexual satisfaction and their social status — whether they’re married and so on — but tend to ignore their personal fortune and education, Gong said. Beyond making women empowered to ask for what they want sexually, higher education and income “increases people’s life satisfaction in general,” she said.

For men, though, Gong says, “it’s a different story.” Both older and younger men’s sexual satisfaction hinges mostly on physiological factors, like their physical and mental health. “They define their sexual satisfaction by how often they have sex . . . these social or economic factors don’t matter much.”

Gong added the finding that married older men are more sexually satisfied surprised her because a common idea is that their sexual satisfaction is biologically driven.

“So, at old age, just being married and having those social contacts matters for people’s life satisfaction, as well as sexual satisfaction.”

The motivation behind the research, completed recently, was to study a subject not broached among the growing analysis of the aging population.