A friend of mine recently asked for some advice on talking to her grandmother about sex. Why, you wonder, would someone need to have that conversation with her grandmother? With the advent of drugs like Viagra, sex in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, is on the rise, most of it unprotected. Because of the rise in unprotected sex, there is a rise in STD’s among the elderly.

Older people have plenty of intercourse when they’re not in an institutional setting. A survey published August 2007,  in the New England Journal of Medicine found that a quarter of those between the ages of 75 and 85 were having sex, and many were doing it at least once every couple of weeks. A third of these sexually active respondents said they had either given or received oral sex in the past year.

There’s no reason to think that nursing-home residents would be any less frisky, if left to their own devices. After all, we’re talking about a mixed-sex population living in close quarters with almost endless amounts of free time. Already, staffers routinely field patient requests for personal lubricants, pornographic magazines, larger-size beds, and prescriptions for Viagra. And that’s with the 1.6 million elderly residents who came of age before the sexual revolution. Within a few decades, nursing homes will be replete with the desires and expectations of almost 7 million liberated baby boomers.

And according to an August 2007 in the Washington Post: “Individuals who remain sexually active gain the benefit of the physical exercise that comes with sex.  It’s also possible the hormones — the endorphins released by orgasms — give a general sense of well-being that could be beneficial. The psychological benefits of being loved and cared for may also trickle over to physical health.”

But how do you quietly slip Grandma a pack of condoms? Does anyone make them  in large type, easy open? If you’ve got any good ideas, my friend would be really grateful.