Privacy
“Sexual health isn’t just about sex, it’s about intimacy,” Klang stresses.
The objective is “to allow the individual to remain the same despite their arrival at the nursing home,” he adds.
For residents, the issue is easier to address directly with the healthcare staff, who are attentive to their basic needs.
“As health personnel, we are very close. They are helped with their cleaning“, says Louise Karlsson, one of the managers of Lindgården.
All employees have been trained on the problem by the sexologist Suzann Larsdotter.
“Invisible for years, the issue is gradually gaining ground” in the country, considered progressive, he congratulates.
“It is a new phenomenon, especially in a society like Sweden where seniors are left out, but there is more and more knowledge that sexual health is a right, and that throughout life,” says the therapist.
In the common room, Nils and his friends want to joke around the subject, but as teenagers, they are intimidated when they have to broach it with strangers.
“Basket of Pleasure”
Klang highlights the “positive reactions, a lot of humor, curiosity, but also a certain shyness.”
“It can take weeks between the first conversation and the moment they decide to talk more about it,” he says.
“But, frequently, they are deep discussions where the pain, the lack and the nostalgia of the disappeared couple are mentioned,” he adds.
What counts, he assures, is that these elderly people feel heard.
Each generation thinks that their generation is the most sexually active and the one with the most desire
Ghosts, when they exist, are there to be realized, to the extent possible.
“We must be able to explain and show how to keep the catheters fixed to be able to have a sexual relationship,” insists the director.
“Every generation thinks that their generation is the most sexually active and the one with the most desire,” he says with a smile.
And to crack down on senior complexes, the establishment has created a “pleasure basket” offering creams and adapted sex toys that residents can obtain.
In the basket, “is the notice ‘Thank you for not disturbing’, different creams and lubricants, dildos, penis pumps, cock rings and other such things“, lists Karlsson.