ABSTRACT

This study with phenomenological approach focused mainly onexploring sexuality for the elderly women who have been livingsingle, especially exploring if their concepts or understandings onsexuality have been changed or not through the vicissitudes oflife. The selected single elderly women were bereaved or divorced,cognitively intact, over 65 years old, and community-dwellers inGwangju metropolitan area in Korea. Fifteen interviewees wereselected by the convenience sampling principle, but data wereanalyzed from the interview documents of the five single elderlywomen. Five domains and 26 sub-constituents were extracted fromthe data analysis based on 4 concrete stages presented byGiorgi(1985). The domains were ① aspects and/or changes insexual patterns by aging, ② self-awareness as sexual being, ③types of expressing sexual desire, ④ acceptance of social-culturalexpectations, and ⑤ changes of sexual concepts.