BLOOMINGTON, Ind., March 4 (UPI) -- Researchers found some disagreement on what constitutes sex among U.S. men and women ages 18 to 96.
Brandon Hill, research associate at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., and colleagues revisited the question they first asked in 1999 -- in the midst of a presidential sex scandal -- what was the definition of sex. Back then, the researchers found college students disagreed if oral sex was indeed sex.
"Throwing the net wider, with a more representative sample, only made it more confusing and complicated," Hill said in a statement. "People were even less consistent across the board. A surprising number of older men did not consider penile-vaginal intercourse to be sex."
The telephone survey involved 486 Indiana residents -- 204 men and 282 women, mostly heterosexual -- conducted by the Center for Survey Research at Indiana University.
The new study, published in Sexual Health, which asked about specific sexual behaviors found:
-- 95 percent say penile-vaginal intercourse was sex, but this drops to 77 percent for men age 65 and older.
-- 81 percent considered penile-anal intercourse as sex, but this dropped to 77 percent for men ages 18-29, 50 percent for men age 65 and older and 67 percent for women age 65 and older.
-- About 72 percent say oral contact with a partner's genitals was sex.
