Putting The 'Boom' In Boomer

In one living room near Dallas, smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt, the subject is sex.

Tonna Werry, representing a company called "Girls Night Out," enthusiastically peddles her wares: lotions and potions and devices and, well, a lot of jaw-dropping paraphernalia.

Think of this as a kind of Tupperware party, if Tupperware were rated XXX, reports CBS Sunday Morning contributor Susan Spencer.

Thousands of such parties are being held every day across the country and aging baby boomers are some of the best customers.

"Older women are my favorite crowd," says Werry, herself 46. "They're more established. I think they know their sexuality more. And I can go in and do a party for a group of baby boomers, you know, that age group. I can go in and do a party for them, have only five or six women there. And probably do at least $900 to $1,500."

Werry and her husband, Kevin, both in their mid-40s, certainly know what they want.

Asked how their sex life is, Tonna believed it is good. Kevin agreed. "Actually I'm over sexed, I think. But I think it's perfectly normal," he said.

At least once a week, the Werry's load boxes of sex toys into their pickup and head off to another party. That a couple their age would take such open joy in all this comes as no surprise to Steve Slon, editor of the AARP magazine.

"The baby boomers believe that they invented sex. And they still think so," Slon says.

In an AARP study, "Sexuality at Midlife," researchers found that, in fact, the baby boom generation is different from generations before it, both in behavior and in overall attitudes.

"Sex is a more important part of their lives. A, a strong majority say that sex is critical ingredient in a healthy lifestyle. A much smaller number of older folks say that," Slon says.

And after all, for the boomers, it's always been that way, coming of age as they did in the midst of a sexual revolution, with one basic rule: if it feels good, do it.

"It was the '60s and the '70s, it was a time of free love. People were sleeping around with other people more casually. So maybe they learned a little more about sex, they had more partners," says Barbara Bartlik.

Pointing to the birth control pill and Viagra, Bartlik, a sex therapist at New York's Weill-Cornell Medical Center, says modern science has meant that the generation that won't take no for an answer, hasn't had to.

"In the past, there was a lot of ignorance. And when people encountered an obstacle, they just stopped having sex," Bartlik says.

She adds, "Well, people who have a lot of sex well into their golden years tend to have less heart disease, they live longer, they have less Alzheimer's, they sleep better, they have better mood, they have less pain. Sex does a lot of good things."

But are boomers really having sex more?

"Well, the only, the only way you can, you know, really answer that is by asking them. And we, we have to take them at their word. And baby boomers say they're having sex once a week," Slon says. "Sixty some percent are saying they're having sex at least once a week. And that's pretty good."

Furthermore, the AARP study found that two-thirds of midlife couples say they're satisfied with their sex lives. Some credit may go to the women's movement, which seems to have moved from the streets to the bedroom.

"In the past, when a woman reached maturity, she might become less interested in sex, thinking that, 'Oh, you know, this is not something my mother would do.' Now, women are wanting to continue their sex lives into their golden years," Bartlik says.

In her latest book "Sex and the Seasoned Woman" Gail Sheehy describes a "new universe of lusty, liberated women." In interviews across the country, they were very willing to tell her about it.

"The mantra 10 years ago was, 'I turned 50 and I'm invisible.' Well now the women in their late 40s and 50s say, 'I'm visible. Hey look at me. I'm pretty cute. I've been to the gym. I've whittled down my body. I now find clothes that I can actually wear. Make-up that is very enhancing. And I'm out there. I'm working. I'm traveling. I'm meeting new people. I'm dating on line.' This didn't happen, even five years ago," Sheehy explains.

Maybe the most celebrated case in point: Diane Keaton, sexy at 60, and almost a patron saint of boomer women after "Something's Gotta Give," in which a much younger Keanu Reaves clearly didn't give her age a second thought.

In Winnetka, Illinois, the seasoned women who came to hear Sheehy could relate to that….

"I still see myself as a sexual being. I don't see it ending," Joyce Yuen says.

"We're living longer, so you have a choice," Camille Kearns Rudy says. "You're gonna live longer and be senile and old and crotchety and mean? Or are you gonna do something about it, and try to make them the most active vibrant days of your life?"

Amid all the euphoria, all the bragging boomers admit reality sometimes does intrude.

"When I have relations with my husband, it's great. The problem is we're a typical family, raising kids, working hard, running around. And so I think the hardest part in sustaining an active, vibrant sex life is carving out time for each other," Rudy says.

Los Angeles psychologist and sex therapist Dr. Rene Hollander wonders about all these reports of action-packed sex given the generation's often frantic lifestyle. He's not so sure boomers really are as sexy as they claim.

"The stress of money making, the stress of keeping it afloat, is a sexual killer," he says, adding, "My patients come to me complaining about sex, they say, 'I'm not having sex two or three times a week, what's wrong with me?' And then I say 'Well where's it written that you must?'"

To give those aging libidos a boost, he co-authored the "Boomer's Guide to Sex that Still Sizzles," filled with many tips.

His most important boomer tip is: don't give in to peer pressure to perform. Having a sex life, he says, isn't just about having sex.

"The largest sex organ is the brain, and so, when people get tactile and romantic and kiss and caress each other, that's very sensual, it can be very sexual," he says.

All of this may thoroughly disgust those 30-somethings and under, already frankly tired of hearing about boomer achievements, much less about their glorious sex lives

Bartlik, the sex therapist isn't moved. "Well, I think that the younger generation always thinks that the older generation shouldn't be having sex. So that's their problem."