It's now known that while sexual response does undergo a variety of changes with age, it's also true that many men and women continue to enjoy a rich and satisfying sex life well past retirement. That may not sound like news to you, but at one time it was.

In the landmark studies of human sexuality done by the late Dr. Alfred Kinsey, his team reported that three Iuarters of men over 80 are impotent-a finding that confirmed the commonly held belief that it's not only natural but right that the elderly are sweet, forgetful and sexless. But it turns out that in Dr. Kinsey's sample population, there were only three women and four men over 80. His conclusion was drawn from a grand total of four.

More recent studies of healthy residents ofCalifomia retirement homes have shown that 62 percent ofthe men and 30 percent of the women over 80 reported recently having intercourse. (The figures for women would probably have been considerably higher if the ladies didn't outnumber the gents by six to one.) Perhaps more important, 87 percent of the men and 68 percent of the women reported recently having had some kind of physical intimacy with another person. No matter how old we get, few of us ever outgrow our need to touch and be touched. It's foolish to think that aging has no effect on sexuality, but it's important to know and appreciate exactly what those effects are.