ROME, April 11 (UPI) -- An Italian study suggests 40 percent of the country's couples have stopped having sex, owing in part to a countrywide drop in the male sex drive.

Chiara Simonelli, a sexologist at the University of Rome and Deputy Chairman of the European Federation of Sexology, said research she conducted with colleagues found the decline in the sex drives of Italian men has increased threefold during the past decade, ANSA reported Friday.

"Comparing sex to eating habits, one could say that Italian couples fall into four basic categories: the anorexic, the bulimic, the satiated and those who are not hungry," she said.

The study found 40 percent of the couples found to be "anorexic" by the study were over the age of 40, and many had children together.

The study said the trend "of men avoiding sex with their partners and preferring to go to a prostitute or, a sign of the times, engaging in virtual encounters on the Internet" has been rapidly growing.

The researchers found only 30 percent of the couples interviewed for the study described themselves as "satiated."

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