Windmill Manor: Nursing Home Sex and the American Psyche

Julie Christie in "Away From Her"

When NPR carried the story of Windmill Manor, an Iowa nursing home which imploded after an 87 year old woman was discovered enjoying sex with a 78 year old man, both of whom had "dementia,"  the Phantom thought, "What a stupid story."

Stupid, because the reaction of the people at the nursing home, the affected families and the media all seemed so thoroughly unintelligent and incapable of asking the relevant questions.  Having seen the News Hour piece on the same story, which revealed a few more details of the "facts" of the case, and having now read more details, the Phantom has now reconsidered: this is not such a stupid news story, even though it appears to be grounded in bureaucratic stupidity. It might be an intelligent story about stupidity.

As the Phantom's professor of ethics in college used to say, all ethical analysis begins with an examination of the "facts." What is pretty clear in reports of this case is we do not now--and may never-- have the relevant facts of the case. The woman is now dead of "natural causes" unrelated to her having sex with her 78 year old swain. So we cannot know more about her.  And knowing more about her is the essential part here, because she is the one who is presumed injured by having sex, despite her protestations that she wanted to continue having sex with her paramour and her somewhat combative reaction toward the nursing home staff who tried to prevent her from having sex.

Of course, the real "injury" is to the psyche of her 59 year old son, who raised a howl and possibly to her 90 year old husband, if he still remembers who she is.

The fury  arises over the idea of older people wanting to have sex. IThe claim is made  that dementia played in rendering the woman incapable of deciding for herself whether or not she ought to have sex. She is being placed in the same class as a retarded institutionalized child having sex with the janitor--doesn't know what she is doing. Doesn't understand the implications. And this presumption is based on: what? Do we have the results of her mental assessment, of her cognitive function tests?

In the 2007 movie, "Away from Her," Julie Christie plays a woman who can feel her own dementia settling in, and insists her husband of 50 years place her in a nursing home, because she does not want him to be burdened with her care, despite his protest. Her love for him drives her to leave him.  She quickly loses memory of  who her husband is  and she no longer recognizes  others from her prior life. She then engages in a romance with another elderly, likely demented, nursing home resident. The husband sees that she is made happy by the new man in her life, and he walks away from the love of his life, leaving her to her new love, realizing he has lost her and she has lost herself, not to another man, but to the ravages of the disease. She is no longer herself. Without her memories, that person who once was contained in that body exists no more.

Those who fired the administrator and the head of nursing of the Windmill Manor nursing home should have seen this film. You can only imagine the reasons for the firings--higher ups running for cover, lawyers screaming, money going down the toilet, the irate 59 year old son of the woman screaming rape and failure to protect my mother from the ravages of this dirty old man. Everyone thinking in headlines and what's-in-this-for-me rather than about the woman most concerned.

As far as public reports go,  some "facts" appear uncontested: 1. The woman emphatically asserted she wanted to have sex with the man. 2. The woman was still legally married to a living husband not in the nursing home. 3. Both the woman and the man had "dementia" which was undefined, beyond that name. 4. The nursing home staff devised a plan to feed the man involved drugs to "diminish his sexual appetites" which could only be either some antidepressant or some central nervous system depressant (like Valium.)  5. The woman was not physically injured and in fact relished the sexual contact. 6. The lawyers for the nursing home felt the nursing home was responsible to prevent the woman from having sex with any man but her legal husband, as long as she lived in the facility. 7. The woman insisted on calling her lover by her husband's name.

But let us ask: Suppose the nursing had found her husband having sex with her in the nursing home?  Suppose the woman sneaked out of the nursing home to have a tryst with her lover?  Suppose it was clear the woman no longer recognized her husband or her children? Is it alright for the woman to have sex with a husband she no longer recognized but not with a man she expressed desire to have sex with? Suppose the woman had rejected her husband,  but expressed the desire to have sex with her new lover?  On what basis do you decide whether the woman is "competent" to decide with whom she wants to have sex?

As the reporter who "broke" this story said, with the baby boomers entering their 60's and getting dementia and lusting about the countryside,  this story is not just a little story about a horrified 59 year old  son wanting to deny his mother whatever pleasures might remain in her last years of life,  but it is "much bigger." The story certainly has got the reporter a spot on national news shows, but to what effect?

There are big issues here, but they are mostly not about sex. Sex is simply the animating driver here, the thing which piques interest of the public which otherwise could care less about demented nursing home people.  The big issue is what constitutes compis mentis, who makes that judgment and on what basis and who are the legitimate stake holders here? The people who fired the administrators likely acted out of fear, fear of lawsuits, fear of "how it would look."  Apparently, neither elderly lover had any complaints. The Phantom suspects the elderly lovers were the last people anyone in power cared about. 

Another question: Suppose these were two teenagers on a psych ward? Suppose the girl was thought to be "acting out" as a result of some personality disorder which drove her toward prolific sexual behavior? Would we be horrified? Are we horrified because a woman had sex or are we simply reacting to the idea of an 87 year old wanting to have sex?

Who has the right to decide whether or not another person may have sex? On what basis do we decide whether or not another person is "competent" to make the decision to have sex? 

What, in fact, was the nature of this woman's dementia? Did she simply have the loss of short term memory or was she unable to recognize people from her past--as her calling her lover by her husband's name would suggest?  

What constitutes the person? If a person has changed physically so much that people who knew her in her 20's would not recognize her today, is she still the same person?  Is memory not an essential ingredient in identifying a person as a distinct person?  If you lose memory of prior events and people, if you can no longer recognize your own children, are you still their mother in anything but a historical or genetic sense?

And who, in this case at least, was offended and injured?

And did the husband of the 87 year old woman, once he was told by his son of his wife's affair express any reaction of note?
 Or had the husband, like the husband in "Away from Her" concluded he had lost his wife long ago and he was happy she could have some pleasure in whatever universe she was currently living?