PHILADELPHIA – Ripping the wrapper off one of society’s last taboos – sex among the elderly – a new survey reveals that many people continue to have intercourse and oral sex at 75 and beyond.

Researchers asked detailed questions about sexual practices, health status and sexual dysfunction to more than 3,000 people between 57 and 85. Their results, published in Thursday’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, exploded many myths about aging and sex.

Of those people still having sex, most engaged in it at least two to three times a month.

“Frequency of sex doesn’t change a lot across age groups,” said Stacey Lindau, a gynecologist from the University of Chicago and lead author of the survey. Those not having sex reported lack of opportunity as often as lack of desire, she said. The survey also revealed that many respondents engaged in masturbation.

Before the survey very little was known about the sex lives of senior citizens, she said, and she hopes the data they gathered will help people find how their experiences align with others in the same age range – something that may become increasingly relevant as the baby boomers advance in years.

The results showed that most people in the 57 to 64 age range were still having some kind of sex – defined as “any mutually voluntary activity with another person that involves sexual contact, whether or not intercourse or orgasm occurs.” Most who reported having sex by this definition had engaged in intercourse or oral sex.

By the 64 to 74 range, a disparity set in, with 67 percent of men but only 39 percent of women reporting they’d had sex within the last 12 months. Lindau attributed that to the fact that women tend to marry older men so many women in this age category had lost partners. Other women gave up sex because of health problems suffered by older husbands.

Sex starts to become the exception rather than the rule in the 75 to 85 group, in which 38 percent of men and 16.7 percent of women reported remaining sexually active. But Lindau said it was health problems more than age that was linked to giving it up.