Can a Wife With Dementia Say Yes to Sex?

[Sevrin]

While most of our models have many years to go before this becomes an issue, I thought I'd share a story I came across in the paper today, since, as the Western world's population ages, this is going to come up more frequently in the future.

A man in Iowa is on trial for felony rape for having had sexual contact with his wife, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, in her room in a nursing home.

To convict Rayhons, prosecutors must first convince a jury that a sex act occurred in his wife’s room at the Concord Care Center in Garner, Iowa, on May 23. If prosecutors prove that, his guilt or innocence will turn on whether Donna wanted sex or not, and whether her dementia prevented her from making that judgment and communicating her wishes.

Now, on first glance, and knowing little about the disease, one might think that she could not give consent. In fact, it's not that cut and dried. Alzheimer's victims can be lucid one moment and not the next. They can also be competent to give consent about some things, but not others. The issue is whether a person with dementia can *ever* consent to sex, or whether she (or he) is condemned never again to experience sexual contact once they have been diagnosed with dementia.

Full article on Bloomberg.

 

[zippypinhead]

The issue is whether a person with dementia can *ever* consent to sex, or whether she (or he) is condemned never again to experience sexual contact once they have been diagnosed with dementia.

And apparently also whether their spouse is condemned to never again experience marital relations with them without risk of incarceration.

 

[Remykins]

I dunno, I feel like if the patient so far gone that she has to be taken care of at a nursing home (like the woman in this case) then she can't take care of something like consent. I mean I get the hubby wants to be intimate with his love, but...at that stage of life, when she can't be independent and needs constant care like that...priorities, y'know? And if the nursing home has rules on that sorta thing, then going against them should warrant legal action.

 

[Sevrin]

I dunno, I feel like if the patient so far gone that she has to be taken care of at a nursing home (like the woman in this case) then she can't take care of something like consent. I mean I get the hubby wants to be intimate with his love, but...at that stage of life, when she can't be independent and needs constant care like that...priorities, y'know? And if the nursing home has rules on that sorta thing, then going against them should warrant legal action.

FYI: Nursing home rules aren't binding on the criminal justice system.

I'm not sure you read the article.

Sexual assault laws years ago recognized that a spouse cannot force himself or herself upon the other. Dementia confuses the issue. People with dementia can lose past inhibitions about sex and become aggressive about seeking it. They might be unable to balance a checkbook while they’re perfectly capable of deciding whether they desire a partner’s affections.

Experts in geriatrics say that intimacy -- from a hug to a massage to intercourse -- can make dementia sufferers feel less lonely and even prolong their lives. Love complicates things further.

 

[JickyJuly]

I feel like the care facility should have had a policy regarding sexual activity. If they had, this whole thing could have been avoided. It's hard to say because the elderly deserve to be treated with respect and that includes their sex lives. I really hated a few of the quotes that included disgust from the people who worked there. It sounded to me like he was really trying to hold on to her. He said their time together only included sexual activity when she asked for it. Maybe she was a very sexual person before the disease? They married already pretty ancient. So, obviously there was an attraction still. If my husband ages into confusion, I think I will have a very difficult time turning him down. As long as I didn't think it would kill him, I'd probably do anything he wanted to make him happy and feel close to him. I don't know if that's right, but it's understandable. I'm quite a bit younger than my dude and would likely be with it enough to care for him. This guy was also elderly and did not have that luxury.

I do think he was wrong for engaging in sexy times when she had a roommate. That's a problem. And then there are girl things that sometimes go along with sex that men aren't accustomed to... like if she were getting infections or tears as older women tend to. It seems extreme to me to label this man a sex offender though. If the facility REALLY felt she was being raped and they didn't call the police immediately, they should also be under investigation. Unless there's more to this story, to me, it's just passing judgement on a couple in a weird, sad situation.

 

[DeezNA]

DISCLAIMER - Didn't read whole article, just your quotes and discussion.

This topic kinda hits home for me because Alzheimer's runs pretty strong in my maternal family. My maternal grandmother passed away from complications following a long battle with it and my mother is just starting to show very early preliminary signs of it which is always a very difficult thing. My mother took pretty much exclusive care of my grandmother when she was in the nursing home, checking in on her nearly daily. For those who don't have first-hand experience with this, it's a terrifying, haunting affliction.

With that aside - My grandmother was very nearly kicked out of the nursing home because of the mixture of her disease and the poor pharmaceutical treatment she was under. She was having full-on hallucinations, afraid that people were out to get her, she attacked two different attendees, remembered none of it even moments later. She was NOT this kind of woman at all, but she was dealing with things she never had to in all of her 85+ years and was utterly terrified. From what I heard, she also tried to seduce one of the attendants several times when she thought they were a young version of her husband (he passed away 20+ years ago).

Severity of the disease and other medical factors (the hallucinations were a side-effect of improper medication and the severity of hers are not very typical; there was a malpractice suit, don't worry) play huge roles in *perception* but from my personal experience, the individual is still the individual. They make decisions based on the information they have, they simply lack a lot of information and information retention and can experience perception distortion. It's up to the moral responsibility of others around them to accommodate for that lack, but Alzheimer's patients can still make intelligent (just not fully informed) decisions.

If the woman was in a moment of lucidity, that is a beautiful moment (and possibly one of their last) that they got to share together. If she slipped from lucidity mid-way, that moment would end VERY quickly. I'm sure any female here can manifest a nightmare scenario of waking up to a stranger on top of them.... Yeah.... fucking scary, lots of screaming, it would end immediately. If the woman was not in a moment of lucidity and was having sex with who she thought was a complete stranger, I would think that would be most hurtful to the husband.

Once again, I didn't read the article... but from my personal experience with this fucked up disease, I don't blame the husband one bit for trying to share what could be the last intimate moment with his wife ever. Just my :twocents-02cents: from my experiences and my overactive hopeless romantic side.

 

[Red7227]

I feel like the care facility should have had a policy regarding sexual activity. If they had, this whole thing could have been avoided. It's hard to say because the elderly deserve to be treated with respect and that includes their sex lives. I really hated a few of the quotes that included disgust from the people who worked there. It sounded to me like he was really trying to hold on to her. He said their time together only included sexual activity when she asked for it. Maybe she was a very sexual person before the disease? They married already pretty ancient. So, obviously there was an attraction still. If my husband ages into confusion, I think I will have a very difficult time turning him down. As long as I didn't think it would kill him, I'd probably do anything he wanted to make him happy and feel close to him. I don't know if that's right, but it's understandable. I'm quite a bit younger than my dude and would likely be with it enough to care for him. This guy was also elderly and did not have that luxury.

I do think he was wrong for engaging in sexy times when she had a roommate. That's a problem. And then there are girl things that sometimes go along with sex that men aren't accustomed to... like if she were getting infections or tears as older women tend to. It seems extreme to me to label this man a sex offender though. If the facility REALLY felt she was being raped and they didn't call the police immediately, they should also be under investigation. Unless there's more to this story, to me, it's just passing judgement on a couple in a weird, sad situation.

I know at the Age care facility I worked at for a little while it was not uncommon for staff to assist the oldies to get their clothes back together afterwards but otherwise ignore the whole thing, and this was for random encounters in a spare room. For a husband to come into a faculty and do the same thing it was expected for it to be cleared by the head of staff and run past the patient's doctor, assuming the client was deemed incompetent.

 

[JessieWolfe]

Why do I always end up reading these stories when I'm pms-ing.

I got way to emotionally invested in that. And I need to redo my makeup.
:sad11:

This is such a sad story.

It sounds to me like donna's daughters didn't like her husband? In the article it says she wanted sex, she would ask for it. Never was there screaming or asking for it to not happen. Her daughters just didn't like the idea of him having sex with her. Her being moved into a shared room, especially against her will is kind of shocking, and I don't think having sex with the room mate in there was morally right.

I personally think it's the daughter's just being weird.

Idk.
They sound like they had a loving relationship, and the sex was consensual.
If i age into dementia (which is likely to happen, I already have memory issues) and I want to have sex with my man, then I would want him to follow up with it... it would be alienating to want those feelings but have my husband not cater them just because he feels like I might not really want it. It would make me feel even more alone and confused than before.