I began to see the sheer breadth of people seeking connection — and the assumptions I’d internalised about desire, age, ability, and worth started to unravel. I spoke to clients in their 20s and clients in their 80s. One elderly gentleman in a wheelchair had his adult daughter arrange the booking for him. Another, a middle-aged man with motor neurone disease, needed help with logistics, but still sought intimacy. A respected psychiatrist would ask for “absolutely no talking”. A retiree just wanted to be cuddled and told that everything was going to be okay. Some requested elaborate fantasies. Others asked for nothing more than to feel normal – seen, desired, held.
It was, frankly, beautiful. And confronting. Because it shattered something I’d long believed: that only certain people get to be sexual. That desire is reserved for the abled, the attractive, the young. That illness cancels it out.
When I worked in a nursing home, there absolutely were residents who tried to sneak off together. I don’t know if any sex actually happened (I doubt it, since these people needed assistance getting out of their wheelchairs), but people definitely got touchy-feely when they could.
There was a triad in one of the units. A quiet man, who rarely spoke and mostly chilled out by himself, managed to get two girlfriends. Sometimes they’d sit together and he’d hold each of their hands at the same time. The women would sometimes sneak a quick reach for other parts of his body, as he sat there with this big smile on his face.
I figured it was none of my business, and I guess the rest of the staff felt the same way. They were all consenting and they kept their clothes on, so if granny can cop a quick feel, who are we to judge? I was just glad they had found a way to be happy while living in such a depressing place.