The study also found that older people still in first marriages have sex more often than those who have remarried 
 
 While people in the early years of marriage have sex more frequently, and their sexual activity tapers off over time, a slight rebound occurs for those whose marriages endure longer than half a century, according to new research. 
 
 The study also found that people who remain in their first marriages have sex more frequently than those who remarry. But frequency aside, marriage order made no difference when it came to actual physical pleasure and emotional satisfaction, said researchers from Louisiana State University, Florida State University and Baylor University. 
 
 Their study -- "Marital Characteristics and the Sexual Relationships of U.S. Older Adults: An Analysis of National Social Life, Health and Aging Project Data" -- is published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, the official publication of the International Academy of Sex Research. 
 
 Researchers analyzed the relationship between marital characteristics and sexual outcomes among 1,656 married adults ages 57-85, using data from the first wave of the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project. They noted that people who survive until their 50th year of marriage -- among whom the slight rebound occurred -- are relatively few in number. 
 
 "Additionally, the study used a snapshot in time -- and therefore cannot prove that length and order of marriage caused sexual frequency," said former Baylor researcher Samuel Stroope, Ph.D., now an assistant professor of sociology at Louisiana State University. 
 
 Nevertheless, the study provided "intriguing results" for one of the fastest growing age groups in the United States -- and one whose sexual behavior rarely has been studied, he said. 
 
 One uncertainty that could be the subject of future research is the "why" of the findings. While sex becomes less of a novelty over time and frequency tends to diminish, "it may be that the permanency of the relationship contributes to sexual relations picking up a bit at the end," Stroope said. 
 
 "Growing old as a couple, with the experience and knowledge that come with that, may play a part," he said. "You are able to learn about your partner and build on that over time. You may have a higher level of trust when you feel that your spouse isn't going to go anywhere. The expectation that the relationship will continue may give you more reason to invest in the relationship -- including in sexual aspects of the relationship." 
 
 As to why "remarrieds" have less frequent sex than those in first marriages, "it may be that those who have been married in the past may not have as strong of a sense of permanence or lasting investment," Stroope said. 
 
 Michael McFarland, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology and public health at Florida State University, was a study co-author. Researcher Jeremy Uecker, Ph.D., an assistant professor of sociology at Baylor and also a co-author, noted that "we know a great deal about sexual behavior at younger stages of the life course. This study adds to a small but growing body of research on the sexual behavior of older adults." 
 
 Added Stroope: "As people age, they tend to be more even-keeled, which may help cut down on marital conflict and facilitate regular sexual activity into advanced age." 
 
 The findings may surprise some in a society in which youth is the ideal and older adults are often subjected to ageism, researchers say. Despite stereotypes, the study joins other research in revealing that regular sexual activity remains a part of many older adults' lives -- even with declining health and the death of a spouse on the horizon. 
 
 ### ||||| More sex may not always make you happier, according to new research published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology 
 
 More sex may not always make you happier, according to new research published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. 
 
 "Although more frequent sex is associated with greater happiness, this link was no longer significant at a frequency of more than once a week," lead researcher Amy Muise said. "Our findings suggest that it's important to maintain an intimate connection with your partner, but you don't need to have sex everyday as long as you're maintaining that connection." 
 
 Some previous studies, and a plethora of articles and self-help books, have claimed that more sex equals more happiness. But this study, based on surveys of more than 30,000 Americans collected over four decades, is the first to find that association is not there after couples report having sex more than once a week on average. The study was not designed to identify the causal process, so does not tell us whether having sex up to once a week makes couples happier, or being in a happy relationship causes people to have more frequent sex (up to once a week). 
 
 In addition, these findings were specific to people in romantic relationships and in fact, there was no association between sexual frequency and wellbeing for single people, said Muise, a social psychologist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto-Mississauga. It's possible that for single people, the link between sex and happiness is dependent on a number of factors such as the relationship context in which the sex occurs and how comfortable people are with sex outside of relationship. The findings, which were published online in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, are most representative of married heterosexual couples or those in established relationships. 
 
 In one study, researchers analyzed survey responses about sexual frequency and general happiness from more than 25,000 Americans (11,285 men, 14,225 women) who took the General Social Survey from 1989 to 2012. The biennial survey, conducted by the University of Chicago, has a nationally representative sample and covers a wide range of sociological issues, including opinions about race relations, religion and sex. For couples, happiness tended to increase with more frequent sex, but this is no longer true after couples report engaging in sex more than once a week. This study and other previous studies report that established couples tend to have sex about once a week on average. 
 
 Despite common stereotypes that men want more sex and older people have less sex, there was no difference in the findings based on gender, age or length of relationship. "Our findings were consistent for men and women, younger and older people, and couples who had been married for a few years or decades," Muise said. 
 
 Sex may be more strongly associated with happiness than is money. The researchers also conducted an online survey with 335 people (138 men, 197 women) who were in long-term relationships and found similar results as the first study. These participants were also asked about their annual income, and there was a larger difference in happiness between people who had sex less than once a month compared to people who had sex once a week than between people who had an income of $15,000-$25,000 compared to people who had an income of $50,000-$75,000 per year. 
 
 "People often think that more money and more sex equal more happiness, but this is only true up to a point," Muise said. 
 
 A third study analyzed survey results collected at three time points over 14 years from more than 2,400 married couples in the United States. There wasn't a strong link between sexual frequency and overall life satisfaction, but couples reported more satisfaction with their relationships as sexual frequency increased up to once per week, with no noticeable benefits of engaging in sex more often. 
 
 The study findings don't necessarily mean that couples should engage in more or less sex to reach the weekly average, but partners should discuss whether their sexual needs are being met, Muise said. 
 
 "It's important to maintain an intimate connection with your partner without putting too much pressure on engaging in sex as frequently as possible," she said. 
 
 ### ||||| Credit: Charles Rondeau/public domain Countless research and self-help books claim that having more sex will lead to increased happiness, based on the common finding that those having more sex are also happier. However, there are many reasons why one might observe this positive relationship between sex and happiness. Being happy in the first place, for example, might lead someone to have more sex (what researchers call 'reverse causality'), or being healthy might result in being both happier and having more sex. 
 
 In the first study to examine the causal connection between sexual frequency and happiness, Carnegie Mellon University researchers experimentally assigned some couples to have more sex than others, and observed both group's happiness over a three month period. In a paper published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, they report that simply having more sex did not make couples happier, in part because the increased frequency led to a decline in wanting for and enjoyment of sex. 
 
 One hundred and twenty eight healthy individuals between the ages of 35-65 who were in married male-female couples participated in the research. The researchers randomly assigned the couples to one of two groups. The first group received no instructions on sexual frequency. The second group was asked to double their weekly sexual intercourse frequency. 
 
 Each member of the participating couples completed three different types of surveys. At the beginning of the study, they answered questions to establish baselines. Daily during the experimental period, the participants answered questions online to measure health behaviors, happiness levels and the occurrence, type and enjoyableness of sex. The exit survey analyzed whether baseline levels changed over the three-month period. 
 
 The couples instructed to increase sexual frequency did have more sex. However, it did not lead to increased, but instead to a small decrease, in happiness. Looking further, the researchers found that couples instructed to have more sex reported lower sexual desire and a decrease in sexual enjoyment. It wasn't that actually having more sex led to decreased wanting and liking for sex. Instead, it seemed to be just the fact that they were asked to do it, rather than initiating on their own. 
 
 "Perhaps couples changed the story they told themselves about why they were having sex, from an activity voluntarily engaged in to one that was part of a research study. If we ran the study again, and could afford to do it, we would try to encourage subjects into initiating more sex in ways that put them in a sexy frame of mind, perhaps with baby-sitting, hotel rooms or Egyptian sheets, rather than directing them to do so," said George Loewenstein, the study's lead investigator and the Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Economics and Psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. 
 
 Despite the study's results, Loewenstein continues to believe that most couples have too little sex for their own good, and thinks that increasing sexual frequency in the right ways can be beneficial. 
 
 One of the study's designers, Tamar Krishnamurti, suggested that the study's findings may actually help couples to improve their sex lives and their happiness. 
 
 "The desire to have sex decreases much more quickly than the enjoyment of sex once it's been initiated. Instead of focusing on increasing sexual frequency to the levels they experienced at the beginning of a relationship, couples may want to work on creating an environment that sparks their desire and makes the sex that they do have even more fun," said Krishnamurti, a research scientist in CMU's Department of Engineering and Public Policy. 
 
 Explore further: Same-sex marriages and heterosexual marriages show similar longevity 
 
 More information: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, www.journals.elsevier.com/jour … pen-access-articles/
– It's no secret that most married couples have less sex as the years go by, but those who stick it out tend to see something of a romantic renaissance—it just takes five decades to get there. Researchers looking at 1,656 married adults ranging in age from 57 to 85 have found there is eventually an uptick in the frequency with which couples have sex. What's more, those in first marriages are having more sex than those who have remarried, report researchers from Louisiana State University, Florida State University, and Baylor University in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. However frequently or infrequently couples were engaging in sex, marriage order didn't appear to influence emotional satisfaction or physical pleasure. "Growing old as a couple, with the experience and knowledge that come with that, may play a part," one researcher said in a Baylor University news release. "The expectation that the relationship will continue may give you more reason to invest in the relationship—including in sexual aspects of [it]." While the results about the sex lives of one of the fastest growing groups in the US proved "intriguing," particularly because it's a topic that has yet to be studied extensively, the researchers did point out that the 50-year second wind was a slight one, and that relatively few couples make it to 50 years to begin with, thus the sample size was small. (Some research has found that couples who are more equal tend to be happy but have less sex.)