An Affair To RememberShe was 82. He was 95. They had dementia. They fell in love. And then they started having sex.
Posted Tuesday, June 10, 2008, at 1:14 PM ETMelinda Henneberger chatted online with readers about this article. Read the transcript.
Bob's family was horrified at the idea that his relationship with Dorothy might have become sexual. At his age, they wouldn't have thought it possible. But when Bob's son walked in and saw his 95-year-old father in bed with his 82-year-old girlfriend last December, incredulity turned into full-blown panic. "I didn't know where this was going to end," said the manager of the assisted-living facility where Bob and Dorothy lived. "It was pretty volatile."
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StumbleUponBecause both Bob and Dorothy suffer from dementia, the son assumed that his father didn't fully understand what was going on. And his sputtering cell phone call reporting the scene he'd happened upon would have been funny, the manager said, if the consequences hadn't been so serious. "He was going, 'She had her mouth on my dad's penis! And it's not even clean!' " Bob's son became determined to keep the two apart and asked the facility's staff to ensure that they were never left alone together.
After that, Dorothy stopped eating. She lost 21 pounds, was treated for depression, and was hospitalized for dehydration. When Bob was finally moved out of the facility in January, she sat in the window for weeks waiting for him. She doesn't do that anymore, though: "Her Alzheimer's is protecting her at this point," says her doctor, who thinks the loss might have killed her if its memory hadn't faded so mercifully fast.
But should someone have protected the couple's right to privacy—their right to have a sex life?
"We were in uncharted territory," the facility manager said—and there's a reason for that. Even the More magazine-reading demographic that thinks midlife is forever (and is deeply sorry to see James Naughton doing Cialis ads) seems to believe that while sex isn't only for the young, exceptions are only for the exfoliated. We're squeamish about the sex lives of the elderly—and even more so when those elderly are senile and are our parents. But as the baby boom generation ages, there are going to be many more Dorothys and Bobs—who may no longer quite recall the Summer of Love but are unlikely to accept parietal rules in the nursing home. Gerontologists highly recommend sex for the elderly because it improves mood and even overall physical function, but the legal issues are enormously complicated, as Daniel Engber explored in his 2007 article "Naughty Nursing Homes": Can someone with dementia give informed consent? How do caregivers balance safety and privacy concerns? When families object to a demented person being sexually active, are nursing homes responsible for chaperoning? This one botched love affair shows the incredible intensity and human cost of an issue that, as Dorothy's doctor says, we can't afford to go on ignoring.
Dorothy's daughter, who contacted me, said that, in a lucid moment, her mother asked her to publicize her predicament. "We're all going to get old, if we're lucky," said the daughter, who is a lawyer. And if we get lucky when we're old, then we need to have drawn up a sexual power of attorney before it's too late. Who controls the intimate lives of people with dementia? Unless specific provision has been made, their families do. And for Dorothy, which is her middle name, and Bob, which isn't his real name at all, that quickly became a problem.
"Who do you love?" Dorothy asked me, right after her daughter introduced us. She'd married her first—and only other—sweetheart, a grade-school classmate she'd grown up with in Boston and waited for while he flew daylight bombing raids over Germany during World War II. Together they had four children, built a business, and traveled all over the world, right up until she lost him to a heart attack 16 years ago. But she never mentions him now and doesn't like it when anyone else does, either, because how could she not remember her own husband? Her daughter visits every evening, and because Dorothy loves kids, her daughter pays the housekeeper to bring hers over every afternoon, "and she thinks they're her grandchildren, and it makes her happy."
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Remarks from the Fray:
I was very interested to read this article, since something similar is happening with our mom. She's been in an ALF since the fall and since she's 73 and still attractive/vibrant, she has received some male attention in her new environment. She was widowed four years ago and misses our dad terribly.
A couple of months ago she glommed onto a male resident who is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's. While it is at times frustrating to have high school-level conversations with her about the fits and starts of their relationship and "interpreting" his behavior (he blows hot and cold, sometimes he's aloof), we are all very happy that she met someone. It's been a shot in the arm for her and while I don't think she understands at times that a "normal" kind of relationship with him is impossible, given their mental health, it has been nice for her to have the companionship. Like Dorothy and Bob, their courtship is curtailed by twice-daily meds rounds but our mom has alluded to some very passionate clinches and I love yous being exchanged.
Mom married at 20 and wasn't used to not having a man around. I know that a person with incipient dementia is not in the best emotional state to be involved romantically, but it's really not my business to stand between her and her beau, since they both care for one another and are adults. I was horrified by Bob's son's response and it was obvious that this was about HIS discomfort (reference to his dad's unwashed penis) more than anything. It's easy to think that people with dementia are sexless beings incapable of making important decisions or having linear thought patterns, but they're still human beings capable of emotion. The relationship between Dorothy and Bob should have been allowed to reach its own natural conclusion.
I get that sex at that age can be perilous if someone has a heart condition, and I understand that an ALF/nursing home doesn't want that kind liability. On the other hand, there are worse ways for a 95 year old guy to go than to be getting a blowjob. I think it's clear that the relationship was consensual and unless it put either resident in danger, people should have just let them be. The idea of geriatrics having sex squicks people out but it's unfortunate that the "ick factor" caused Dorothy and Bob to be split apart.
--aristonice
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