The Politics of Elder Sex

"American Gothic” by Grant Wood

Is it worth the risk of abuse that an elderly patient suffering from Alzheimer’s and/or dementia might derive pleasure from an intimate encounter with a loved one? A legal case in Iowa recently reported by the Times (“Sex, Dementia and a Husband on Trial at Age 78,” NYT, 4/13/15) seems to extend the principle of Affirmative Consent into the marital bed. As you may recall California recently passed an Affirmative Consent statute which essentially makes seduction illegal on college campuses. In an equivalent of a suspect being read his Miranda rights, a couple must stop even before they have gotten to the foreplay stage and establish whether each party is of sound enough mind to make a conscious decision. Volition would ostensibly be measured by an absence of ambivalence. The ability to make a decision would quickly relegate resistances to that dark closet of the unconscious where we pack away all our useless old toys. What a better way to throw cold water on sexuality than to deliver it from any relics of humanity or complex human emotion! In the current instance, the State of Iowa will weigh in on whether a husband may enjoy the comfort and pleasure of sexuality with his chronically ill wife, despite the fact that “experts,” according to the Times, agree that “physical intimacy can benefit dementia patients…calming agitation, easing loneliness and possibly aiding physical health.” What a charming way to usher in the last stages of life! Surely it will be the final nail in the coffin for those who fear that old age is nothing more then the famous description offered by Shakespeare’s Jaques in As You Like It, “Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” The Times article begins by stating, “There is no question that Donna Lou Rayhons had severe Alzheimer’s…But another question has become the crux of an extraordinary criminal case unfolding this week in an Iowa courtroom. Was Mrs. Rayhons able to consent to sex with her husband?” The Times piece goes on to report that “Mr. Rayhons, a nine-term Republican state legislator, decided not to seek another terms after his arrest.” Daniel Reingold, chief executive of The Hebrew Home at Riverdale is quoted thusly, “Touch is one of the last pleasures we lose. So much of aging and so much of being in a long-term care facility is about loss, loss of independence, loss of friends, loss of ability to use your body. Why would we want to diminish that?” Mrs. Rayhons died in August, but from the Times quotes “a social worker at the center” as saying she “was always pleased to see Henry.” Let’s say she had lived, it’s unlikely she would have been called upon to testify. But would it have possibly helped her condition if an order of protection were issued or if, even worse, her husband were sentenced to prison and she wasn’t able to see him anymore? One wonders what Rand Paul’s opinion about this would be? Is sexuality amongst aging married couples one area where the libertarian approach of less government starts to make sense? Big Brother should not be watching the few lucky septuagenarians who have the wherewithal to get it on.

A Separation

Because the Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation is not a piece of fluff and deals with a cycle of endless conflict on a microcosmic level one can’t help but look at the movie on a macrocosmic or global level. Is the small world of the movie, which deals with memory, blame and most importantly forgetting, making some sort of statement about the increasing marginalization of a major power in the Middle East? One thing is sure. A Separation starts out a surprisingly cross-cultural note—almost as a way of contravening the film’s possibly symbolic content.  Any arguing couple will recognize the agon of blame and spite that characterizes the relationship between Simin and Nader and the burden that is put on their daughter Termeh who is asked to take sides in the struggle. Arguing couples will also recognize how a flame of discord can turn a home into a tinderbox. Farhadi is quite artful in this respect since the explosive turn of events, in which the warring couple eventually becomes entwined, lurks in the conflict between Teheran’s middle class (of which Simin and Nader are members) and the disenfranchised working classes where the seeds of fundamentalist belief  reside. To the extent that it departs from its initial domestic plot, Farhadi’s movie is unfamiliar both in style and structure, presenting a tableau that western audiences won’t ultimately identify with at all. Firstly, it ends on a question mark, with no resolution of its central plot element. Secondly, it presents a world of courtroom bureaucracy that might be called Kafkaesque were it not for the parochial morality which is the palette from which Farhadi works.  Returning back to the larger issues that the film raises, many historically orientated movies place their emphasis on memory. The Santayana line,"those who cannot remember the past are condemned repeat it" is often the subliminal epigraph. A Separation is unique amongst modern films from any culture in that it places its emphasis on forgetting. Nader’s father, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, is an emblematic character, a kind of Tiresias whose loss of conviction holds out a perverse hope. But of what? In the sixties, it used to be called blowing your mind.

Mad Cows

Opponents of health care reform might be living proof of a need for radical changes in the system, as many of them seem to be suffering from undiagnosed cases of mad cow disease. Known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the disease is transmitted to humans when they ingest the brains or spine of beef that contains damaged proteins known as prions.

Mad cow disease is extremely hard to diagnose and differentiate from other degenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s, but it is characterized by confusion and memory loss, two characteristics that have been noticeable in opponents of President Obama’s health plan. Dementia and involuntary jerking movements known as myoclonus have also been in evidence at the many tea parties across the country, where grown adults dress up like Benjamin Franklin and rant incoherently about the onset of socialism.

Among the most telling manifestations of mad cow disease in humans are extreme personality changes. When Joe Wilson, the Republican representative from South Carolina, yelled out “You lie!” at President Obama, in an unprecedented break from congressional decorum, it was hypothesized that Wilson might be suffering from Tourette’s syndrome, whose symptoms include involuntary utterances of expletives and salacious or provocative language. But doctors at nearby Johns Hopkins Medical Center quickly speculated that Wilson’s outburst was an early manifestation of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, as mad cow is known in humans.

Mr. Wilson will be allowed to retain his seat despite his condition, as there is currently no legislation on the books that prevents members of congress from voting while suffering from medical impairments. The split down party lines that characterizes the current health care debate, a disorder known to mental health professionals as “ego splitting,” may exemplify a collective form of schizophrenia deriving from other highly contagious neuro-degenerative disorders known to affect the legislative branch.

There is at present no remedy for the outbreak of mad cow disease currently afflicting anti-Obama opponents of health care. But even those with health insurance may find that the disease is not covered by their plans, since in all likelihood it is a pre-existing condition.