Old age. It’s all going to get us someday. All we can hope for is a nice place to drift into the grave. Well, the kind folks at the New York Times have alerted us to nursing home that is sexy as hell. Yes. It turns out these retirees are doing all kinds of getting-it-on.
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 expressionpolicy.” One aide even made the couple a “Do Not Disturb” sign to hang outside.
“I enjoyed it and he was a very good lover,” Ms. Davison, 85, said. “That was part of how close we were: physically touching and kissing.”
And what might be behind alls this “touching and kissing”? Mostly Viagra.
Ms. Davison is among a number of older Americans who are having intimate relationships well into their 70s and 80s, helped in some cases by Viagra and more tolerant societal attitudes toward sex outside marriage. These aging lovers have challenged traditional notions of growing old and, in some cases, raised logistical and legal issues for their families, caretakers and the institutions they call home.
But this isn’t always a good thing. Yes, the elderly are the same as us young folks, full of D.R.A.M.A!
Relationships also mean more drama for the staff, which tries to keep up with who is together and who is not. The dining room can be a land mine. Sometimes, one member of a couple will get jealous when the other pays attention to someone else. Other couples become too amorous, prompting calls to “keep it in your room.”
But how can we fault these old people for doing what natural intended even if it was well after nature intended it. Maybe it all comes down to this:
Beverly Herzog, 88, a widow, said she missed sharing her bed. Her husband, Bernard, used to lie on the bed with his arm outstretched. Assume the position, he would tell her. She would curl up beside him. “I hate getting into a cold bed,” she said. “I feel no one should be alone.”
h/t NY Times