Alzheimer's trial stirs talk of senior sexuality

[Jesus Malverde]

Whether Mom still wants sex probably isn't top-of-mind when most people are picking a nursing home for their loved one.

But experts from the Widener University-based Sexuality and Aging Consortium say a ground-breaking Iowa court case illustrates why both consumers and long-term care facilities should do more thinking about sex - before they get into trouble.

In the case, Henry Rayhons, a 78-year-old former member of the Iowa House of Representatives, is charged with sexual abuse for having sex with his wife of seven years in her nursing home. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. A doctor at the Garner, Iowa, facility where Donna Rayhons lived, along with her two daughters from a previous marriage, had concluded that she was too impaired to consent to sex.

The case, which is now at trial, raises complex questions about what constitutes consent for a person with dementia and how nursing homes should prepare for the inevitable: People of all ages want and need sexual contact.

"Our need for touch is universal, from birth to death," said Robin Goldberg-Glen, a social work professor at Widener who is co-president of the consortium.


Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/health/20150418_Alzheimer_s_trial_stirs_talk_of_senior_sexuality.html#fFTs8iV7t2AAbYWe.99

[Warpy]

1. Alzheimer's patients who are frightened or in pain

have an enormous potential for violence. Had she not known who he was or not welcomed the attention, he'd likely have been found on the floor, his pecker rammed up his butt.

Yes, I've worked in nursing homes.

Unless they can prove their mother was harmed in any way, those two women need to back off. Having physical contact with her husband is likely better than anything else anyone is doing for her.

Lucky patients who are in the nursing home with a spouse are housed in the same room, able to be companions and comfort, at the very least. Unlucky patents are in with a same sex stranger with the spouse far away.

Nursing homes also need to be a lot less prudish about the elderly. Some do have the incurable itch until they die. They need to be able to scratch it without some Miss Prunella of either sex shrieking and hyperventilating at them.

[951-Riverside]

2. Its called Gerontophilia

and there are plenty of people especially caretakers who would love to have sex with elderly people who care barely remember anything let alone consent and they would have a field day if the courts legalized this.

I figured that Mr. Rayhons would be a republican.

[delrem]

3. Mr. Rayhons is her husband.

To call their loving relationship "gerontophilia" is ludicrous, at best.
He's not not some rapist "caretaker" as you imply.

[951-Riverside]

4. Are you saying *because* he's her husband, it couldn't be rape? n/t

[delrem]

5. No, I'm saying that your claim that it's "gerontophilia" is absurd. nt

[Nay]

6. This article and all the comments are pretty eye-opening.

As expected, a bunch of RWers explode in rage over the 'libs' and the 'gays' getting between a man and his wife. To me, this smacks of the still-prevalent idea that a wife is the property of the husband and truly has no say in whether she wants to have sex. One commenter mentioned that this man had medical custody of his wife, and thus had blanket permission to fuck her whenever he wanted because he basically could consent for his wife to have sex. Now, that's pretty twisted, IMHO. One would hope that this man really loves his wife, they had a wonderful sex life up until she got dementia, and they both still enjoyed sex as a way of communicating. But we sure don't know that because she effectively cannot give consent. I don't know the step-daughters' attitude toward their stepfather, but they are entirely correct to say that their mother cannot have consented.

I agree that more should be done before patients go into a nursing home -- preferably before the patient is too far gone to define their sexual wishes and get them down on paper. I know some nurses in these homes and some of the stories are too much -- men seem to lose their sexual urges only at the very end, and without the social 'brakes' on their behavior, they have to be restrained from trying to have sex with any woman they find. Naturally, the nurses have more sympathy for the women because they are seen as not mentally able to consent and are also generally physically weaker and cannot defend themselves adequately. All I can say is that if I am ever committed to such a place, I will have the necessary papers filed.

Another thing that bugs me about this article, and others like it, is that it considers the 'need for touch' and the need for 'intimacy' to be the same as having sex, and that having sex automatically fulfills the need for touch and also is always intimate. I don't know about anyone else, by my daily need for touch OR intimacy is mostly met by non-sexual means -- massage, a hug, a warm smile, time with family, heart-to-heart talks, a shared life, etc. Sex is fine, but it is only one type of contact among many others included in the categories of 'touch' and 'intimacy.' I doubt that prostitutes provide sex in order to experience touch or intimacy, although for some of their customers it may be all the intimacy they ever get. Sex can be alienating if it is not really intimate (ask people in unhappy marriages), so when intimacy is defined as sex, I think they are wrong.