I worked as a psychologist on the spinal cord injury rehab unit in 2 different hospitals for a total of eight years. I was the one who was appointed to talk to the guys about sexuality. I had a video that I showed them that had people having sex who had disabilities, and it was very explicit.
People with spinal cord injuries have varying degrees of sexual function. Some of them can get reflex erection, and others can get erections by thinking about sex. Others feel sexual pleasure by touching the dividing line between full sensation partial sensation and no sensation.
I never heard of any sexual activity between nurses and patients or any other caregivers and patients. I have heard, however, of patients in long-term care facilities or with home health care having caregivers place vibrators for them or position them for sex with another disabled partner.
You are referring to condom catheters. They are devices that are worn outside of the penis (like a condom) as opposed to inserted inside the urethra like a regular catheter. While a man who leaks some may use such a product, they are also used for more significant urinary incontinence as well. They are used a lot for travelling, when access to restrooms can be difficult. But they aren’t actual condoms that are used for sex. They drain into a bag that is attached to the device. http://www.incontinencesupport.info/Other_Devices_files/condomcath.jpg
When I was a trainee nurse I was on a ward with a long term completely disabled patient, and the scuttlebut was that a certain nurse on that ward did indeed jack him off, however, there is no way, ever, that I would have done the same, or that any nurse I knew would have.
While nurses have to deal with some pretty bad stuff, that would be a step too far for the vast majority.
So, IMO, if you’re completely disabled and institutionalised, your sex life is basically over.
BTW, if I end up in hospital and some nurse asks me about my sex life, s/he won’t enjoy the response, AT ALL.
Quite right too.
I can’t abide people that consign men unable to convince a woman to have sex with them to a life time of involuntary celibacy.
Shame on you all, you bigots.
Catholic or not, there is no administration on earth that could have made me jack off patients, and I had do do some REALLY scuzzy things for patients.
But you want nurses to be hookers!
Tough shit if you asked any nurse I know for the biz. You just lost any sympathy I might have had for you with that diatribe. Hookers are people too.
Incorrect. The nerves affected in any one individual is variable depending on cause of paralysis, where the damage is, whether or not lower spinal reflex actions are intact, whether sensory or motor nerves are affected, and so on.
Not always, but it’s a good rule of thumb. A quadriplegic man is actually more likely to be able engage in sex than a paraplegic man but you have to be careful about assumptions. There are quads with no sexual function and paras with fully functional equipment.
The older I get the more I am happy that sex does NOT stop at an arbitrary age!
My personal opinion is that YES, we should provide private spaces for such instances, but with controls to prevent abuse. If grandpa comes to visit grandma in the nursing home they should be allowed time together alone and undisturbed whether they want it for sex, for gossiping about people they know, watching a G-rated movie, or juggling sex toys. If the adult kids are uncomfortable at the notion of old people sex too bad for them - grow the eff up and deal with it.
The biggest issues are for those for whom sex is a genuine medical/physical risk, and those who are brain injured or demented to the point where consent can’t be meaningfully given, but the mentally competent should have options.
Yes, there really are people who expect just that - disabled people go the rest of their lives without sex. There are even people who believe the disabled simply aren’t sexual beings.
Worse that that - there are people who expect the disabled to not even do that, would forbid them that, and just expect them to be horny as hell for their rest of their lives, or simply don’t believe that someone paralyzed even has sexual feelings.
I’m not real fond of such peoples’ opinions on the matter…
The home nurse is there to take care of medical needs. The hooker is there for sexual needs.
Actually, there is another difference - part of what you can pay for with a sex worker is the illusion of a relationship, a role-playing session, or catering to a fetish, and so forth which is considerably different than simply clinical stimulation to ejaculation. The emotional interaction is part of the reason sex with another human being, even if part of a commercial transaction, can be so much more satisfying than masturbating yourself.
Well, there’s also the possibility of being arrested as a john. Just because you’re paralyzed doesn’t get you off the hook for breaking the law. There are jail cells that can accommodate wheelchairs.
There’s also the difficulty that quadriplegics are seldom if ever alone, and when they are alone, there can be problems with, say, dialing a phone to call an “escort service”. Would a nurse or home health aid be willing to dial the phone for the patient to place the call to a prostitute? Send a text or e-mail?
Either that, or what he wants is not simply a handjob/blowjob/quick bang but, ya know, maybe a relationship with another human being that also incorporates sex? Something that might potentially lead to dating or marriage or some such?
I had a cousin who married a quadriplegic. They had a long happy life together, including several children so yes, there was sex in their marriage though I never asked for details. The sad thing is that, eventually, when she became disabled as well they wound up in the same nursing home, but in separate wings because the place had a strict policy about segregating the sexes. Even a long-term married couple were not permitted to share a room. That always struck me a both ludicrous and cruel.
Exactly. And how the heck to you determine that when the patient population is so heavy with dementia, memory deficits and difficulties in higher thought processing? This isn’t true of every elder, of course, or even every elder in a skilled nursing home…but it’s true of a lot of them. Do you do have a competency hearing every time Dorothy wants to get her freak on? What if Sam recognized Diane when she came to visit him at 2, but by the time they are done with dinner, he can’t remember who she is? Is it okay to allow him to have sex with this woman he doesn’t know at a time when he’s clearly not mentally all there? Does it make a difference if he and Doris have been married for 40 years?
Lots of ethical conundrums.
By the way, we did have a test question on more than one final in nursing school that went something like this: “At 8:55, you’re getting ready to hang Mr. Jones’ IV antibiotic, due to be administered at 9. When you enter his room, you see him engaged in sexual activity with a visitor. What do you do?” The answer: close the door and wait about ~30 minutes before you go KNOCK THIS TIME! (You’ve got until 9:55 to hang a 9:00 med.) Patient autonomy was the key concept here: patients have the right to a sex life, and we need to respect that as long as it’s consensual and safe. But that was in the context of acute care. The specific topic of nursing home sex wasn’t clearly answered, although it was occasionally discussed. At this point, our teachers have more questions for us to consider than Industry Approved Answers.
Precisely. I can’t cut nails, either. Not won’t - can’t. It’s outside the scope of practice for an RN in my state. Not only will insurance not pay me to do it, but I could lose my license if I do it and I got reported. Same thing for handjobs. I’m not opposed to handjobs, but that’s not within my scope of practice, even though it’s certainly within my skill set.
My sister and SIL are both LCMTs, and part of their ethics training includes what to do if a client asks for more than a massage. And here’s what it is. You end the session immediately, and give them 5 minutes to get dressed and leave or you will call the police. And they probably won’t get a refund, either.
I’m sure you’re aware of this, but the general public all too often assumes there are binary answers to those questions. By the end my mother had problems with all of the above, but she also was clearly competent enough to give consent to at least some things, including whether or not she desired physical contact of any sort. My father had power of attorney but still asked her about many things to get her input even if, by the end, the final decision was his and not hers. The disabilities involving brain dysfunctions are a spectrum. One could be incompetent to manage one’s financial affairs but still competent to consent to sexual intercourse with one’s spouse. Only can be severely mentally impaired yet still have wants, desires, and wishes.
Christopher Reeve said that his sex life with his wife never went away, although it definitely changed. John Hockenberry, who is a partial paraplegic, has also said that in addition to having normal sexual function, he also has normal bladder and bowel function too; he uses a wheelchair because his legs cannot support him. He does have some motion and sensation in them. There is a Discovery Channel program that has aired a number of times titled “Paralyzed and Pregnant”, about a quadriplegic woman who had a baby, and she did say that her orgasms are much more powerful now than they were before her accident. Unfortunately, that marriage failed; she shares custody with her ex-husband, and sadly is completely unable to do any physical care for her child - all of it must be done by other people. Not a small number of people have said, “Typical man, runs out on his disabled wife” but she had been disabled for some years before he met her, and I’ll be the first to say that disabled or chronically ill people can be EXTREMELY difficult to live with. Nobody would criticize a woman who left her quadriplegic husband, I can assure you of that.
Does anyone remember the story about Sandra Day O’Connor’s husband, now deceased, who struck up a relationship in the nursing home with another woman? Apparently this is fairly common, and a movie was made about it a few years ago. He didn’t know who she or their kids were any more, and the family was actually okay with it after the shock wore off, because as one of their sons said, “The light has come back on for him again.”
OK, so nurses are out, least as part of regular care. What about sperm banks & donations ? Would they possibly help out somebody who can’t donate solo ?
Anecdotally, I know for a fact that vets will extract such from cats and dogs the old fashioned way, although apparently larger, potentially dangerous animals such as bulls require more care and equipment. That was an interesting family dinner w/ my then 22 y.o. sister the vet-in-training, let me tell you :p.
While I have no personal experience with such matters, I feel somewhat comfortable going out on a limb on this one and saying no, that would never happen.
I don’t know anyone, nor have any friends anymore. A lot of situations. “Friends” leave the friendship after an accident that causes horrible results like paralysis or something
Nobody would criticize a woman who left her quadriplegic husband, I can assure you of that.