A nursing home in the Bronx, Hebrew Home at Riverdale, is allowing residents to freely express their sexual desires under their “sexual expression policy.” Today, America is seeing more and more elders having intimate relationships well into their 70s and 80s, breaking the traditional notions of aging Americans. Accordingly, nursing homes are moving from institutionalized to individualized care, supporting personalized choices like intimate relationships. The Bronx nursing home is sponsoring events like happy hour, senior prom, and a dating service, G-Date, to help resident get involved in such relationships. The nursing home put their sexual expression policy into place not only to encourage intimacy but also to set guidelines for staff members and protect residents from unwanted advances.
See Winnie Hu, Too Old for Sex? Not at This Nursing Home, NY Times, July 12, 2016.
Special thanks to Lewis Saret (Attorney, Washington, DC) for bringing this article to my attention.
