Baby boomers were at the forefront of profound social changes in sexual attitudes and many have expressed a desire to remain sexually active throughout their life course. The purpose of this survey study was to assess the perceived preparedness of Ontario’s long-term care (LTC) homes to meet the changing sexuality needs and expectations of LTC residents. We examined sexuality-related attitudes, including in the context of dementia, among 150 LTC administrators. Participants also completed a questionnaire assessing their experiences and perceptions regarding existing and anticipated supports, barriers, and priorities. Most participants demonstrated positive sexual attitudes; however, multiple challenges to meeting residents’ sexuality needs were noted, including assessing capacity to consent, limited privacy, staff training, conflicting attitudes, and a lack of adequate policy and guidelines. Challenges are broad and significant and considerable attention is required to meet the expectations of the next generation of LTC residents, including gender and sexual minority elders.

Intimate kissing is often viewed as a preliminary or ancillary behaviour in studies exploring sexual interactions. There is a lack of research that focuses on differentiating the types of intimate kisses, including the contexts in which they occur, and desirable and undesirable features. The current study was designed to assess memories of first, best, forbidden and worst kisses. Participants were 691 U.S. adults (mean age 32.27 years; 55% identified as male) who completed an online survey addressing kissing attitudes and experiences using both structured and open-ended survey tools. Four themes emerged through content analysis: physical components, connection to the partner, context, and emotions evoked; and these are discussed for all four types of kissing memories. Findings are discussed in terms of embodiment that intimate kisses capture, their role as a metric of one's attraction to a partner, and the means by which kissing experiences might solidify a sense of oneself as a sexual person.

Romantic kissing is vastly understudied in scientific research, with only one study systematically examining romantic kissing motives and associated gender differences. The current study explored motives for romantic kissing in greater detail by examining whether gender, age, relationship status, sexual attitudes, and personality predicted variations in adults’ romantic kissing motives. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses (N = 461) revealed that those with more permissive sexual attitudes, higher levels of extraversion, those currently in committed relationships and those younger in age were most likely to endorse relational/sexual motives for romantic kissing. Goal attainment/insecurity motives were most frequently endorsed by men and those with more permissive sexual attitudes, higher levels of extraversion, lower levels of agreeableness, and lower levels of conscientiousness. Results emphasise the importance of a variety of variables in understanding motives for romantic kissing.

This study compared the attitudes of adult children toward the sexuality of their older parents with their parent's own attitudes toward sexuality. A 56-item questionnaire was given to 41 family pairs consisting of a parent over age 65 and his or her son or daughter. Questions were based upon previous studies and involved six point Likért ratings. In general, attitudes toward sexuality were positive among parents and their adult children. However, adult children had significantly more positive attitudes than their parents. This difference was primarily due to more positive attitudes toward physical aspects of sexual behaviours. Overall, the disapproval and negative attitudes of adult children reported in previous research were not found in this study. Adult children had positive attitudes, much more positive attitudes than their parents, possibly due to a cohort effect