STD rates soaring among senior citizens

Retirement communities are supposed to be luxurious sunshiny social havens, but as anyone who’s spent time at one knows, there are plenty of inherent risks associated with living at one.

Even just on an aesthetic level, retired ladies are known to become increasingly heavy-handed with leopard print wardrobe items, and many old women with cataracts stubbornly continue to apply their own makeup and then proceed to go about their days.

Residents also have to watch out for the kind of verbal hazard of being around the type of elderly folks who still use racial slurs as common adjectives and pervy old men who, with the help of an afternoon G&T, feel perfectly comfortable making lewd comments about the figures of their daughters’ friends. And of course inhabitants aren’t immune to physical harm. Besides having to worry about the usual sicknesses associated with old age, retired people are famously bad at driving and merely walking to one’s car can feel like a death wish.

One thing that’s traditionally not a threat in retirement communities is contracting STDs, but even that is no longer the case. According to MNN:

Data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that there were 706 cases of syphilis diagnosed among U.S. adults aged 45-54 in 2000 and 179 in those aged 55-64; by 2010 the numbers had risen to 2,056 and 493, respectively.

A similar increase was seen in cases of Chlamydia. In 2010, there were 16,106 in the 45-54 age group diagnosed with the Chlamydia, versus 5,601 in 2000, and 1,110 cases in adults aged 55-64 in 2000, compared with 3,523 in 2010.

Granted, 45-54 is hardly “senior,” but increasingly, statistics show that people remain sexually active well into their later years. NBC affiliate WNDU reported two years ago that one in four over 75 are sexually active at least once a week, and that more men who take erectile dysfunction medications are contracting STD’s.

So should communities start placing large bowls of free condoms in the lobbies of 65-and-up condo buildings the way they do at the student centers at colleges?

Those who make it to senior citizen age have invariably been through a lot, and those who have the funds to join nice retirement communities are surrounded by peers with nothing to do except socialize, eat what they like (within reason) and day drink for the first time since college. It’s widely agreed upon that they’ve earned the right to this extended late-life vacation. Maybe they also feel they’ve earned the right to not wear condoms. And who can blame them?