"Certainly my impression is that a lot of people really don't have much sex at all over the age of 40. It really does tail off and what seems to happen with marriage is that friendship and companionship kick in. The marriage is held together by family and children.
"Studies on what makes for a happy marriage put sex in the top 10 but not at the top. Friendship and having someone loyal and supportive is more important. These are the things that make marriages last."
If it is only sex that is holding a relationship together, however, Dr. Mackay said she believed that marriage would be "pretty much doomed." "People tire of it and it becomes less and less exciting," she said.
While a lack of sexual activity may not be a problem for some couples, it could become a trigger for infidelity for others, she acknowledged. Sexual desire can lie dormant and untapped but it can be resurrected "very quickly," she suggested.
"If a man takes on a younger wife or sex partner, that whole excitement can be restored," said Dr. Mackay. "That is one of the reasons people have affairs -- because they miss the excitement, the flirting and the feeling that people get when they are first attracted to someone. Some people miss it and put it aside. Some people miss it and act on it."
Commenting on the methodology of their sex surveys, a spokeswoman for Durex said the age range for the survey last year had been 16 to 45 but said the company had tried to broaden the response by conducting the survey online.
"By doing it this way, it's not just sexually active people who respond," she said. "Our survey is open to the public. We put it on our Web site. A lot of older people use the Internet now."
They're doing much more than just surfing the Internet, according to Pfizer. The pharmaceutical giant challenges Dr. Mackay's diagnosis, claiming that men aged 40 to 59 have sex an average of up to six times a month and men in their 60s have sex at least once a month.
But then the makers of the impotence drug Viagra would say that, wouldn't they?
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