I’d agree with you if the charge was custodial interference. If the doctor put her on a low fat diet, and he brought her the cheeseburger she asked for, for example, I wouldn’t support attempted murder charges.
Really you with the face? You do not understand how medical/nursing assessments/judgements are different than the observations that they are supposed to based upon?
“Nurse so and so, you concluded that Ms. Rayhon was not capable of consent. What did you base that assessment upon? … The experts here have testified that her being able to recognize her husband, her enjoying his company, her being able to express a desire to have sex with him, and such being consistent with her previous values, would all be signs that she was capable of consent, that continuation of intimacy would be of benefit for such a person and not a harm, and that short term memory deficits and socially inappropriate behaviors are not indicative of an inability to consent. You have stated that she recognized her husband, enjoyed his company, consistently expressed a desire to continue to have sex with him, and from what we have otherwise heard such a desire was consistent with her previous values and desires. Do you stand by your previous assessment?”
On preview, yes being outside scope of practice is also true and more pertinent.
Nurse so and so’s answer might justifiably be “I based that assessment on the decision made by the treating physician.” And then her observations would be elicited and whether or not the treating physician asked about those observations questioned.
The specific case rests around two open questions:
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Did Mr. Rayhons actually have sex with his wife after being told he was forbidden from doing so? The defense is arguing that he did not and there is little actual evidence that he did. From our discussion POV though not a very interesting question, other than the perversity that he could be being charged with so little evidence that the event in question even occurred.
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Assuming he did (which for our discussion we assume), was the assessment that Mrs. Rayhons was incapable of consent a valid one? Or was it an assessment made either out of consideration of the wishes of daughters that have the power to make or break the home’s future, consideration of the values of nursing staff who get squeamish even thinking about these people having sex, or physician ignorance that he was using an incorrect assessment tool?
I’m content to let a court figure all this shit out. Obviously you feel you know enough about this lady and her state of mind to declare the existence of an injustice, and I simply don’t. For all any of us know she was as mentally equipped as a 3 year old.
Which makes arguing this with you a gigantic waste of time.
To me so far the most disturbing information is that from DSeid’s links that the daughters are in the health care field, specifically in one case mental health, yet they put their mother with a diagnosis of dementia and Alzheimer’s in a facility with no expertise in either. Why? It only makes sense if they are trying to get between their mother and her husband. Maybe they had reasons for this but so far none have been offered.
Huh?
How?
The false equivalence is the hotel being equivalent to the nursing home.
Money.
According to what I’ve read, the daughters had a problem with a prenuptial agreement, and something about Rayhons “moving money out of an account”, that led to the daughter requesting guardianship over her mother’s health and financial affairs. Apparently Rayhons agreed to this without making a case, but there are still hard feelings.
Why do they have to make a “determination”? The nursing home is a business. They set the rules. If they say no sex on the premises then that is it. They do not need a reason any more than any other business needs a reason to say no to sex on their premises.
Unless I am missing something. Do they allow “sane” residents to have sex? Is there a legal right for a spouse to fuck the other spouse anywhere they want?
Again you with the face the abstract discussion is valid to debate no matter what the specifics of this case. You don’t want to, fine, but some of us find that broader question of note. As to the specifics, we can only do what we do in all other similar crime circumstances … discuss based on the what has been put in the public record. The lack of having all the facts has not stopped many of from opining on many other subjects. There have been enough facts established though to at least justify some opinions and to suggest some questions.
Re question one of my last post.
Rayhons admitted to having sex with his wife in the facility prior to being told it was henceforth forbidden. He denies having sex with her afterwards. The daughters had their mother examined and tested after the alleged event to collect evidence of the “rape.” (Unknown if they asked for or received her consent.) Result?
What do they have? Panties with a seminal fluid stain on them of indeterminate age, completely consistent with past sexual activity that is established to have occurred. A room mate who said she heard sounds of sex and then changed her mind and said she heard whispering. And an admission of having had sex in the facility but not one of having had sex after having been told it was henceforth forbidden.
His lawyer seems to be planning on focusing on this lack of evidence that the event even occurred and not on the more interesting second question. Which makes sense. Who knows? The family physician may be a very sympathetic character and no need to attack his lack of competence if the prosecution cannot even demonstrate the event happened.
But why would a case like this, with no real evidence that the event even happened and highly doubtful that it qualifies as a crime even if it did, even be pursued?
Whack-a-Mole, the determination is that of the ability to consent. That is not within nursing scope of practice. Deciding if someone recognizes someone and is happy to see them is.
Actually it seems that a nursing home cannot legally forbid sex on premises in all cases.
(Bolding mine.)
Many homes have policies in place to deal with sexual issues and spell things out. This place did not.
You’re missing the part where violating the rules of the nursing home doesn’t get someone charged with rape. It gets treated like any other violation of the rules- perhaps the resident is required to leave the facility , or it might result in the visitor being banned from visiting.Mr Rayhons only gets charged with rape if someone has alleged that she is incapable of consenting.
Ah, interesting. Thanks.
Then it would seem they probably do not have an issue with sexuality since residents are allowed to have sex.
Legally required and made practically impossible are not mutually exclusive. If privacy is restricted then the ability to not be on public display is impaired. Lots of people have issues with things that the law requires and an institutional setting can comply with the law and still make celibacy the norm. Hence the line after the bolded one about the barriers in place that prevent appropriate sexual expression. Again the Helleresque catch 22 - trying to have sex under those circumstances is taken as evidence that you lack the ability to consent, therefore no sex.
You’re also missing the point that I was responding to the last paragraph of post 138, specifically.
No.
It seems the wealthy who can have private rooms can have sex.
Those who share a room not so much.
There is no “they are impaired” to that.
Should the nursing homes provide sex rooms? Maybe…I dunno.
There are easier ways to get sex. I just can’t see this being about him going to her because she didn’t have the mental capacity to say no. Everyone agrees, even the daughters who didn’t like him, that they had been very much in love.
I’m shocked that this is in the courts. As far as I can tell, there is no evidence she was hurt or upset by the sex, and I think there must be some vendetta against the husband or something.
You don’t need a lot of marbles to know whether you want to engage in sex.
There are a bunch of reasons we “protect” children from sex, mostly having to do with potential consequences that simply aren’t an issue for an elderly lady boffing her husband. She has no reputational risk, little risk of STDs, no risk of pregnancy, and no risk of being improperly manipulated. Well, no additional risk over the massive risk that any senile person has.
If I were making the law, I would presume that a person who can still decide which cookie to eat is still competent to decide if she wants to have sex with her husband. If she was actually comatose or something, I retract my opening statement. But if she’s just really senile? Naw, if she wants sex with him, and he’s willing, I think the staff should go out of their way to facilitate that.
fwiw, my grandmother literally died of dementia. Her husband had passed away years before, and she had chosen not to pursue new sexual relationships for the many years she was completely lucid, so this particular issue didn’t come up. But even when she stopped being able to speak, she recognized her two children, enjoyed seeing them, and, I believe, would have been competent to say “yes” or “no” to sex had she had a regular sexual partner at the start of her decline. Maybe there are cases where a person would lose that capacity, but “she can’t remember who is the president”, or whatever those memory tests were, seems completely irrelevant to whether she could consent to sex.
There are always easier ways. Doesn’t mean people don’t force the issue anyway.
Can we agree on an extreme case, and perhaps walk it back to where the difference is?
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I assume we all think that if she, of sound mind and body, were to consent, that would be fine.
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I also assume that we can all agree that if she were in a Terry Schiavo-esque state, then him having sex with her regardless of their relationship prior to her being admitted for care, would be wrong.
Any disagreement on these two points? If not, then we are getting hung up on whether she could meaningfully consent due to her medical condition. Some say yes, some say no, and we do not have all of the facts. I am fine with that so long that we can also agree that there is somewhere along the spectrum of dementia where she lacks the capacity to consent to sex with anyone. I can’t exclude the husband in ‘anyone’ because the law forbids marital rape along the same grounds.
However, I don’t trust the husband’s assessment of her state of mind because on it hinges him getting what he wants. And I do think that if he took issue with the diagnosis, there were lawful means to protest and have the decision overturned rather than sneak a quickie. That, right there, pings my creep-o-meter.
Those lawful means could well have taken until after she died. I remain shocked and appalled that the nursing home took away the old lady’s right to consent. There are so many indignities that come with age and especially with dementia, it just seems horribly wrong to add that to the list.
And I think that if she really didn’t want sex with him, the story we would be hearing is “the roommate complained of her screams and the commotion”, not “she was too senile to consent”.
Yeah, he probably should have fought legally. It sounds like he should have fought having her committed to this place to begin with, too. There’s clearly something weird going on in this story. Any maybe it’s that there’s something really wrong with him. But it seems more likely there is something really wrong with the daughters.
No, the false equivalence is that your GF, I’m assuming, doesn’t pay the hotel staff to assist her with eating, bathing and cleaning herself up from any other activities, so your not leaving her there for the staff to clean up after sex isn’t what distinguishes the 2 scenarios.
You said
Which is true, but pointless, since most businesses don’t want you to sleep or bath on the premises either, that’s what I was trying to point out with the hotel analogy.
Would then hugging an alzheimers spouse be assault?
Yeah. Yes.
You’re right. We’re arguing in absolutes, and it’s really a quantitative difference, not qualitative.
But this case just begs for reductio ad absurdum. I think it’s a valid question whether, since we agree Terry Schiavo would be just rape rape rape you’re-a-monster, why would kissing or hugging her not be sexual assault? That’s a tangent, sure, but it makes me question the basis for anything.
I guess if this woman could talk at all, and made any sort of indication she was willing, such as grabbing for his crotch, then, although I wouldn’t want to watch it, society shouldn’t prevent it.That’s the line I want to walk it back to.
It’s just impossible for me to imagine anyone wanting a 76 year old woman with Alzheimer’s than pre-existing and well established feelings of affection and intimacy.