When sixtysomethings come into his Toronto sex shop, Cory Silverberg says, they are normally giddy. And they want to know about condoms.
"They come in joking how it's silly that at this age they don't know anything about this stuff, but they don't, so they want to learn about it," said Mr. Silverberg, who runs Come as You Are.
And on some occasions, they come in with their adult children.
"In the condom section, there will be the conversation where the parent will say, 'I don't need those,' and the kid will say, 'Well, you might.' "
As their mothers and fathers divorce or are widowed, and take up Viagra and online dating, it has sometimes fallen to adult children to re-educate their parents on the hazards of the modern dating world.
Canada's aging population remains ignored by traditional sexual health education campaigns, with the result being a spike in HIV infections and other sexually transmitted diseases.
HIV infections among Canada's 50-plus have almost doubled from 7.6 per cent in 1998 to 13.8 per cent in 2006, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
And since 1997, the number of 60-and-overs who report having chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis has risen consistently, although it still remains at less than 5 per cent.
"There seems to be a perception among older people that age gives them some kind of vaccine, some kind of protection against these diseases, and it doesn't," said Jane Fowler, a 73-year-old from Kansas City, Mo., who calls herself the "original 1950s good girl."
Ms. Fowler was a virgin on her wedding night and monogamous for all 23 years of her marriage. After divorcing from her husband, she had a handful of sexual partners, all of whom she knew well.
In 1991, after undergoing routine blood tests for medical insurance, the retired journalist learned she was HIV-positive and that she had gone undiagnosed for five years.
"I was just overwhelmed. It wasn't, 'Why me?' but it was more, 'How could this have happened to me?' " Ms. Fowler recalled.
The man, who was also divorced, did not know he was HIV-positive when he infected Ms. Fowler and did not notify her when he found out.
Ms. Fowler now runs HIV Wisdom for Older Women, a program intended to help prevent older women from contracting the virus. On Monday, she spoke to caregivers in Toronto.
"These diseases that typically strike an older person, so many of them can't be prevented. This can be prevented," she said.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of adults in the United States aged 50 and older with HIV-AIDS rose from 16,300 in 1995 to 114,000 in 2006.
Part of that number represents those who were infected years ago and have lived to be older thanks to antiretroviral therapy and other treatment options. Still, 8,000 people over the age of 50 are newly infected every year, a number that makes up about 10 per cent of all new infections. About 2,000 of the newly infected are over 60.
The National Association on HIV Over Fifty estimates that 17 per cent of new infections in Massachusetts were among those over 50 in 2006. That figure reaches 22 per cent in both New York and Miami. In Florida, women over 60 are one of the fastest-growing risk groups, according to the Senior HIV Intervention Project in Fort Lauderdale.
That's because Florida is a snowbird destination, as are cruises, said Joan Price, the California-based author of Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty.
"A lot of people will go to recover from a divorce or a death by taking a cruise, and meet some dashing stranger. They spend the cruise with the person, feel they know each other really well, have wild and wonderful sex and then start sedately dating," Ms. Price said.
