When you were in your teens and twenties, Ronni, tell me you didn't roll your eyes and gag when you thought of two old people bumpin' uglies. We all did! It's just that now we're the old ones, and the rolling eyes are directed at us. What goes around comes around. Why, then are you so surprised?

Thanks for posting this. Shame on them. Corporate must have told them to make this funny.

It isn't just CNN but I heard the same response from other outlets. I find it hard to understand. They ought to have been delighted but instead they made crude jokes and acted as though it was undignified. It was amazing and surprising to me too. I thought they knew about it anyway but they were acting like it was news to them. Of course, we all know most kids don't even want to think their parents do 'it' and maybe that's what this is all about-- infantile journalists who haven't yet grown out of thinking like they are the kids.

For what it's worth, I heard that report being mocked on a local radio station also. (I can't remember which one of the two I listen to. Perhaps both, but I'm not sure.)

It was just as aggravatingly juvenile and I remember thinking I ought to mention it to you - then, of course, I forgot.

I do remember how they wrapped it up, though, and I have to give them a tiny bit of credit (that in no way cancels the idiocy) for that. One of them stopped and said something close to, "Okay, thinking about your parents having sex is gross. But do you want to think about NOT having sex in twenty years? I don't!"

At least there was one slightly-thoughtful moment in the whole mess, but that's not saying much.

Hope that many of us will voice our outrage to CNN. I had contacted NBC earlier about Brian Williams smirk and comment about thinking twice about going to gramma's without calling, at the end of his report on the report and close of the evening news.

I have been thinking about elders having sex ever since I saw a documentary about AIDS orphans in Kenya. The principal care givers are the Grandmothers. These women have bodies ravaged by age and poverty yet they make heroic efforts to care for these children . The parents have been wiped out because they were sexually active. There were no Grandfathers in the piece. Were they too wiped out by sexual activity?

I heard the report on this study on NPR. I wonder how the activity world wide compares to this study, which I assume was done in the US. I also understood that the sexual fequency was about the same as in younger people. That should be a sobering thought to tittering youth that half of all their sexual activity will occur after 50. NPR also mentioned that the best predicter of sexual activity in elders was the existance of a long term partner. My conclusion: one can maximize lifetime sexual activity by working on long term relationships. ---And doing research on helping men live longer.

The juvenile smirks of those news anchors go way beyond jokes about aging sexism. It displays an entire attitude about elders that is unacceptable. We are still people with the same needs, desires and hopes that we had when we were young.

I love how you point out items that can easily slip by me due to my deliberate or habitual numbness or inattention to stupidity, obscenity, and ageism (all related). Thank you so very much. (I miss the junk on TV because my TV is... unplugged!)

I think this reaction by so-called newspeople was outrageous. I heard about this prostitution of news from a friend, who thought I should "tell Ronni." I assured her and husband, (both just now closing in on retirement age,) that they could be sure Ronni was probably writing on it for TGB at that very moment.

I hope that every elder exposed to this kind of blatant news and elder trashing expresses their outrage to the offending sources. I hope an apology is demanded from all those resorting to such grade school, Jr. High bathroom humor. The results of this study were deserving of more serious presentation and consideration.

Elder's will never get respect unless we enlighten the verbal, non-verbal behavioral, abusers. To do so has nothing to do with being thin-skinned, or unable to take a joke, or whether or not we may have laughed at such in our youth. It does have to do with changing deeply imbedded cultural attitudes that are ageist and adversely affect our quality of life, job opportunities, and more.

Whatever happened to the time - when the private lives of people were just that...why does everything have to be broadcast. If Seniors have sex - so be it and if they don't so be it...and news "professionals" should be just that.

I just wanted to note that Alina Cho not Betty Nguyen was one of the two anchors for the segment. Ms. Nguyen was on assignment in South Africa during this broadcast. I wonder if the normal, regular anchor (Ms. Nguyen) would have acted more mature than T.J. Holmes and Alina Cho; hmmm...maybe not either.

I've been battling this prejudice against older-age sexuality that I see in the media (especially television) and in our society in general. There's the pervasive viewpoint that an older person who delights in sex -- or even expresses a need for it! -- is somehow pathetic, ludicrous, and altogether icky.

It's starting to change, because many of us are talking out loud about senior sexuality. The recent NEJM study was helpful, and most of the time, media reactions were respectful.

We'll get there -- as long as we're willing to throw off the covers (so to speak) and express ourself as fully human beings for whom touch, sensuality, and -- yes -- sex are a normal part of our needs and life.