"Yelling at clouds" is my new euphemism for sex
July 14, 2016 6:36 PM   Subscribe

Too Old for Sex? Not at This Nursing Home: When Audrey Davison met someone special at her nursing home, she wanted to love her man. Her nurses and aides at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale did not try to stop her. On the contrary, she was allowed to stay over in her boyfriend’s room with the door shut under the Bronx home’s stated “sexual expression policy [PDF].” One aide even made the couple a “Do Not Disturb” sign to hang outside. [NYT]
posted by Room 641-A (30 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite


 
Am I misunderstanding something, or does that document imply that residents only have the "right" to have (consensual) sex with each other if there is *no* possibility that the sexual activity in question could transmit an STI?

If so, that seems very restrictive...
posted by Juffo-Wup at 6:44 PM on July 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


I think this is incredibly awesome. I hope we're moving away from our really weird cultural tendency to dehumanize seniors, especially those who happen to live in residential care.

Go forth and get your freak on! YOLO!
posted by bologna on wry at 7:27 PM on July 14, 2016 [12 favorites]


This is beautiful. I was thinking about this recently: my 90 year old Nana lost her husband 25 years ago and hasn't had a partner since (as far as I know -- it's pretty unlikely she has though, even though plenty of men have been interested). I know she and my grandfather had a very active sex life ("he was hot stuff!" she tells me in her thick Polish accent) and I can't imagine how she's coped over that time, without intimacy, without affection from a partner (cf. family members). My late great aunt on the other hand had a variety of "male friends" (her words) in the two nursing homes she lived in and had a grand old time until she passed away in her early 90s.

(Is it really bad that the first thing I was reminded of when I read this article is the terrible old joke: Moshe and Chaya, two nursing home residents, meet in the lift on the way down to lunch. Moshe says: "Chayale, I could use a little action, you interested? Meet me in my room after lunch!". Chaya thinks about it for a second, says, "Sure thing! See you there". Anyway lunch happens, their assignation happens and they're heading back down in the lift to dinner and Moshe says "Chayale, you didn't tell me you were a virgin; if I had known I would have been more careful, more gentle". Chaya replies: "well, if I knew you could get it up, I would have taken my stockings off!")
posted by prettypretty at 7:28 PM on July 14, 2016 [32 favorites]


I feel really out-of-touch. I'd have never imagined that this wasn't the policy everywhere.
posted by roll truck roll at 7:44 PM on July 14, 2016 [5 favorites]


This isn't too surprising. Allegedly, The Villages, a giant retirement community in Florida, has a bit of an STD problem.

You're never too old to wrap it up. No glove, no love.
posted by SansPoint at 7:53 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


WTF? Aren't these adults? Why is this noteworthy?
They're seniors, not middle school boarding pupils.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:26 PM on July 14, 2016 [10 favorites]


did not try to stop her...was allowed to

Good on this nursing home I guess, but please please don't let me end up old in the West. I'd rather be wallowing in my own filth than have people the age of my grandchildren allowing me to do stuff.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:29 PM on July 14, 2016 [17 favorites]


" I'd have never imagined that this wasn't the policy everywhere."

Oh, yeah, there are huge concerns around issues of consent, since you have people in many states of mental sharpness at nursing homes, and there are huge concerns around approval of family members who may be paying for the nursing home and be very upset if dad is dating in the nursing home, and there are huge concerns around, well, adultery -- not necessarily the morality per se (although that too) but if both spouses are patients and one is "dating around" what obligation does the nursing home have to the mental health and happiness of the spouse being cheated on? What if the spouse is not a patient but objects to the relationship? Etc. (The highest-profile case, btw, was probably Sandra Day O'Connor's husband, an alzheimer's sufferer, who could no longer remember his wife of 55 years and fell in love with another alzheimer's patient at his nursing home. The O'Connors approved and were happy he was happy, but you can easily see how a family might be concerned about manipulation, abuse, consent, the "jilted" spouse, etc.)

Anyway definitely these policies that allow, protect, and even encourage relationships are by far more humane and appropriate, and definitely where the industry is moving, and they also allow the nursing home to have much more frank conversations about consent with patients and families than when everyone just pretended nobody was having sex. But it remains a delicate area with a lot of potential pitfalls.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:35 PM on July 14, 2016 [45 favorites]


If one considers the pill first being prescribed in the US as the start of the sexual revolution, this woman was 29 at the time.
posted by brujita at 8:55 PM on July 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


The others quoted were in their (pre)teens and 20s.
posted by brujita at 8:58 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


God DAMN, Beverley Herzog. I should be so hot at 88!
posted by padraigin at 9:49 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


How inspiring! I'm just a spring chicken and should go forth and cross the road.
posted by infini at 10:01 PM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


If I'm not too old for sex, I'm also not too old to punch you in the face. GTFO of my room! Seriously. Do they employ chaperones or something? Surely this is a basic right being denied here. I had no idea this was the case and this here is the exception.

I'm dying at home.
posted by adept256 at 11:09 PM on July 14, 2016


obscure simpsons reference must be on a vacay.
posted by anarch at 12:51 AM on July 15, 2016


One aide even made the couple a “Do Not Disturb” sign to hang outside.

What, they don't own neckties?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:44 AM on July 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


prettypretty: It's pantyhose, or tights if you're British, otherwise the joke doesn't work. Sorry.
posted by Grangousier at 3:14 AM on July 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


I know what pantyhose and tights are but here in Australia they are called stockings.

Also this is great. Get at it, old folk! It would actually be great if all copulation everywhere was prohibited until people were infertile because that would solve a ton of problems.
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:31 AM on July 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


If you have not had to navigate the elder care system in the US you would be horrified at the lack of basic dignity our seniors are afforded, unless perhaps you can afford to pay for the best private care.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:04 AM on July 15, 2016 [7 favorites]


This place is not far from my building. Maybe I should open a geriatric singles bar or something.
posted by jonmc at 6:09 AM on July 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


I recently learned, from the medical professional staff on a cruise ship, that STDs (the non-lethal ones like chlamydia and herpes) are a serious ongoing issue with the crews. Most of them are young, away from home for the first time, cooped up in close quarters, and bored. So the medical staff makes sure to provide free condoms and actively advocate their use.

The other population rife with STDs, they said, was nursing home residents. Not young, but also cooped-up and bored. Plus they take it for granted that birth control isn't an issue.

Also, the elder care facilities referenced in these articles are the expensive private ones.
posted by panglos at 6:19 AM on July 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


My experience with nursing homes is that it's a place of last resort when someone is in pretty dire shape physically and/or mentally, and as a result, very few residents are in any kind of shape to deal with most of life's normal concerns, including love and sex. My impression from TFA is that the Hebrew Home has a wider variety of housing options, including things more like assisted living and possibly even independent living, which makes more sense regarding residents' love lives.

{{separate thought}}

My parents divorced when the kids moved out, and my mother had several relationships with men over the years. At one point she was virtually married to a man whose wife was in a nursing home with Alzheimer's or dementia. He still loved her and stayed married for material reasons (if not also emotional), but he had moved on with his own emotional life. My mother considered her relationship an emotional marriage if not a legal one.

Later, when my mother was suffering from moderate mobility issues and mild dementia, she lived in assisted living (she lived mostly independently in her own efficiency apartment, but took meals in the dining room and took some services, such as medicine management, in her room), she formed a relationship with a man in her building. I don't *think* either of them was in any physical shape for a sexual relationship (I could be wrong), but the companionship and, as the article mentions, the physical intimacy were still greatly comforting to her.

One time I visited her unannounced. She wasn't in her room, so I went to her boyfriend's room. He yelled 'Come in' when I knocked, and I found them lying in bed together, fully clothed, cuddling and watching TV. My mother wasn't a prude, but somehow having me coming in on them flustered her and she said, "Don't worry; we weren't doing anything!" My answer: That is none of my business if you were.
posted by tippiedog at 6:33 AM on July 15, 2016 [6 favorites]


Also, the elder care facilities referenced in these articles are the expensive private ones.

That's my impression, too. Facilities that include living arrangements for a wider variety of independence than what I understand with the term 'nursing home.'
posted by tippiedog at 6:35 AM on July 15, 2016


Elder care facilities are HEAVILY regulated due to past neglect, so if some of these rules seem weird or draconian, imagine your parent living here, even in relative independence.

First, most of them have housekeeping. Imagine you are in bed with someone and the housekeeper knocks. She is likely to just come on in if you didn't hear her during "activity."

Second, many have check ins. For instance, if you don't come to breakfast and don't call down to let them know you're not coming, they are required to check in on you. Say you are otherwise occupied during breakfast and your "occupation" does not allow you to hear the knock. They will come in if you don't respond.

Third, a lot of the ladies in my grandma's place are not as sharp as they once were. Many of them forget to lock their doors and many accidentally open doors to rooms that are not theirs.

Fourth. My grandma, at 92 met a man at her assisted living. She had been a widow for more than 25 years when she moved in and never dated. She decided that in order to sleep with each other, they needed to get married, so my grandmother was married once at 19 and once at 92. She walked down the aisle in the assisted living. I made the cake. It was awesome.
posted by Sophie1 at 6:52 AM on July 15, 2016 [18 favorites]


I know what pantyhose and tights are but here in Australia they are called stockings.

Then what are stockings called?
posted by Paul Slade at 7:26 AM on July 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


WTF? Aren't these adults? Why is this noteworthy?
They're seniors, not middle school boarding pupils.


Yeah, you'd be surprised.

Running catholic nursing homes/care facilities was my family's business going back a few generations. My father's nursing home once got sued by the son of a resident because he walked in on his mother at the nursing home engaged in sexual behavior with another resident. He sued the nursing home for not keeping his mother from having sex. My dad couldn't believe it. To him, she was a grown woman capable of making her own decisions. It always amazed me how often it was the families and not the staff who saw the residents as inmates stripped of rights rather than whole people needing help.

There can be complicated issues - dementia and consent, for example - but for the most part this should much more of a non-issues than it is.
posted by Lutoslawski at 8:27 AM on July 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


Exactly, Lutoslawski - and I'm not even talking about the dementia/Alzheimer's aspect. My FIL has Alzheimer's and is in a nursing home. His latest routine is he doesn't like wearing pants anymore (and really, who can blame him). He's definitely one of the most ambulatory people there so he's often found wandering around without pants. In this place, everyone has severe dementia, so there is no such thing as consent but also, no one seems to notice that he's not wearing pants except for the staff. At a more independent assisted living where most people are consenting adults, If someone is transitioning into later stages and is still relatively ambulatory, it can be really problematic.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:00 PM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


Then what are stockings called?

Chazwozzers.
posted by infinitywaltz at 1:20 PM on July 15, 2016


Then what are stockings called?

Legskins.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:49 AM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


I worked in a nursing home 20 years ago and we were taught, then, that our residents had the same right to a sex life as we did. If we saw residents having sex, close their door, give them privacy.

This is in VA and there are laws addressing this issue which allow for sexual rights for the elderly. A nursing home is just that, their home, not a temporary place for most of that population.
posted by SuzySmith at 10:40 PM on July 16, 2016


This is an interesting article in Dutch about sex in nursing homes and sex workers who specifically work with this population. It is in Dutch and I know not many of you can read it but it's worth it if you can (or if you can manage with a crappy machine translation. I tried to provide a Google Translate link but it doesn't let me get passed the cookie-wall).
posted by blub at 9:13 AM on July 17, 2016


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