The Ethics of Sex and Alzheimer's by Portmann John;

Author:Portmann, John;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

6

The Sexually Deprived in American Prisons

We saw in Chapter 1 that ancient theologians cared about and validated the sexual needs of those whose spouses were ill, absent, or unwilling. The insights of the ancients – whether we accept them or not – make the plight of the Alzheimer’s widow seem a bit more familiar. We should glance not only behind us, chronologically speaking, but also beside us, in order to grasp the moral and social context of the sexual deprivation of an Alzheimer’s widow or widower. For Americans have been debating a somewhat similar emotional plight for decades: Do married prisoners deserve regular opportunities to have sex with their spouses? In general, Americans think not. Even though prisons are meant to be punitive institutions and nursing homes are not (although nursing homes may seem to be), public sympathy should be the appropriate lens through which moderns view these spaces. Sociologists have provided considerably more data about prisons than they have about nursing homes, which makes comparison of the two cultural spaces difficult. Beyond providing rich context, prisons help us answer the question of why we should care about the sexual needs of people who could almost certainly live without sex.

Because activists and politicians have tried to link the sexual deprivation of prisoners to the terrible frequency of prison rape, I will spend some time in this chapter on sexual violence, which some legal scholars have concluded results from sexual deprivation. If we shrug our shoulders at the thought of prisoners getting raped, we will certainly not care whether a married prisoner’s conjugal debt is met. Nor are we likely to worry about the sexual needs of older people married to Alzheimer’s. We’ll see that some states do respect the conjugal debt owed to married prisoners; absent any data about people who are married to Alzheimer’s, we can only speculate on public sympathy for their emotional needs.

American prison officials have long denied that consensual sex between men takes place behind bars, just as they have tried to deny the prevalence of rape in prison. Men in prison simply went without, we pretended. Sexual deprivation is meant to be part of the suffering to which criminals are condemned by the courts, we implicitly assumed. And if the odd homosexual rape occurred in prison, a victim could find little if any sympathy. In any event, the thought was too repulsive to entertain. Indifference or denial came easily to our forebears.

This chapter challenges us to articulate the appropriate sexual expectations of a spouse in the modern West. Many conservative thinkers would insist that a lack of sexual activity between spouses in an Alzheimer’s scenario is a “cross to bear,” not a pain to relieve. What can our attitudes toward married prisoners tell us about sexual entitlement? We’ll see a strong sense of sexual entitlement emerge, along with an accompanying conviction that criminal activity negates that entitlement. Of course, those married to Alzheimer’s are guilty of no felony, no misdemeanor. If anyone should bear a sexual cross, so to speak, it should be the incarcerated, not the care givers.

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