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Ethically Managing Sexual Activity in Long-term Care

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Abstract

Although care providers in almost every long-term care facility face daily challenges involving issues related to residents’ sexual lives, guidelines for the ethical, legal and socially responsible management of sexual activity are rare and ubiquitously inadequate. In this essay, I argue that ethically and legally, care providers should only interfere in residents’ sexual activity in restricted ways and for limited reasons. I utilize Joel Feinberg’s philosophical works, which address the limits of power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual, to derive an ethical framework for determining how and when care providers should intervene in residents’ sexual activity.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Alister Browne for his input and help with the original thesis.

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Correspondence to Bethan Everett.

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Everett, B. Ethically Managing Sexual Activity in Long-term Care. Sex Disabil 25, 21–27 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11195-006-9027-3

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