SEX, LOVE AND NURSING HOMES

At 86, William Depippa is one hip dude. Sporting an earring and suspenders, he sparked the interest of Rosemary Gould, 62, a kindly grandmother who lived down the hall at the Barn Hill Care Center in Newton, N.J. In a six-month courtship--much of it spent on the porch talking bingo and gardening--they fell in love. "Nobody bothered," says Rosemary, who has diabetes and congestive heart failure, "to come see what we were doing." A week or so before marrying in September, they moved into the same room at the home, pushing the beds together. If they wish to be undisturbed, she says simply, "We keep our door closed."

Not so long ago, the desires of senior lovebirds would make care administrators blanch, says Barbara Cox, who runs Barn Hill. But now homes for the aging are facing the facts of life: the fires of romance still burn at twilight. With people living longer and healthier--not to mention popping Viagra--there's more on the minds of some nursing-home residents than just the next visit by the grandkids. Some of them want romance. Not so long ago, nursing homes treated residents like children, or inmates, incapable of making their own decisions. But today many enlightened facilities are respecting the wishes of their clients. "You want to give them dignity and privacy," says Cox. "Just because they're in a nursing home doesn't mean they can't have feelings for someone else."

But the issue of sexual freedom and privacy in nursing homes can be perilous for administrators, as well as for the seniors and their families. It's one thing for a sweet, clear-eyed couple like the DePippas to share the warmth of love. It might be a different story to find your slightly bewildered mother in bed with the lecherous old man from next door. This is uncertain terrain, and American nursing homes are scrambling to frame policies that respect--and protect--their 1.6 million residents, a number that will soar in coming years as baby boomers continue their inexorable march to old age. Dorree Lynn, a psychologist who is writing a book about sex after 50, calls the changed attitudes "a new paradigm for aging and sexuality."

This isn't quite Denmark, where one nursing home shows porn videos every Saturday night. But many American facilities now train workers to stay cool and nonjudgmental if they happen upon an amorous event. "Sometimes it's a little freaky," says Tina Sisneros, a nurse from Vacaville, Texas, who specializes in elder care. "But you can't demean them if you catch them in the act. You really have to teach the staff how to react in those situations." Most important is making sure both parties are cogent. But that's not always easy to discern, says Monte Miller, a San Antonio, Texas, psychologist who works with nursing-home residents. "A lot of times, it's not really clear if they're able to consent."

The liability can be enormous. A Seattle nursing home recently paid $475,000 in a settlement to the children of an 86-year-old woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted by another resident. Both victim and assailant, now deceased, were suffering from dementia. Frightened by such cases, some nursing homes put the kibosh on hanky-panky. Hansford Niles, who gets around a Texas nursing home in a wheelchair, wanted some privacy with a lady friend. "But we knew we'd be evicted from the facility if we got caught," he says. Niles, 65, finds it galling. "For God's sake, kids live together and they're not married; they have apartments. So what is the difference in old folks' being together?"

When it comes to lovemaking, some seniors can probably put young rascals to shame. But among the elderly, often it's not so much about sexual mechanics as human intimacy. The National Council on the Aging says people 60 and older typically enjoy sexual relations at least once a month--but that includes the pure delights of holding hands or sharing a kiss. "With many frail elderly, sexuality is expressed not in the act of sexual intercourse but in the simple pleasure of touch," says John Henkel, the president of Foss Home & Village in Seattle, Washington.