Senior Sexting -- Gertrude, an 83-year-old from the San Francisco Bay Area who asked that her last name not be used, regularly sexts the male residents of her nursing home. (Photo in the public domain)
Poll finds sexting a growing trend among seniors
December 3, 2009
by shf
WASHINGTON (FASTLAUGH.com) — Think your grandma isn’t “sexting”?
Think again.
Sexting — sharing sexually explicit photos, videos and chat by cell phone or online — now fairly commonplace with young people, is an emerging trend among seniors. More than ten percent of seniors have been involved in sexting in some form, an Associated Press-AARP poll found.
Young adults are even more likely to have sexted; one-third of them said they had been involved in sexting, compared with about one-quarter of teenagers.
Seniors who sent nude pictures of themselves mostly said they went to a boyfriend, girlfriend or romantic interest.
That includes Gertrude, an 83-year-old from the San Francisco Bay Area who asked that her last name not be used.
Gertrude said she had shared naked pictures of herself with the male residents of her nursing home.
What she didn’t realize at the time was that seniors across the country — in Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania — have faced charges, in some cases felony charges, for sending nude pictures.
“Sure, I would do it again,” Gertrude said, “I just don’t see it as that big of a problem, personally, and for all intents and purposes I’m already locked away anyhow.”
That was the view of nearly half of nursing home residents surveyed who have been involved in sexting. The other half said it’s a serious problem — and did it anyway. Knowing there might be consequences hasn’t stopped them.
“There’s definitely the mortality factor that old people feel,” said Cathleen Vogle, a sociology professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia and author of the book “Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships in Nursing Homes.”
Research shows elderly brains are no longer able to make good decisions consistently.
“That’s part of the reason why they have a high rate of broken hips and things like that, is they think, `Oh, well, I don’t have that long left anyway,’” Vogle said.
“Sometimes they think of it as a joke; they have a laugh about it,” Vogle said. “In some cases, it’s seen as flirtation. They’re thinking of it as something far less serious and have no concerns about consequences down the road or who will get hold of this information, such as their children and grandchildren, and in some cases their great-grandchildren.”