Dildos and penis pumps: Swedish retirement home helps elderly spice up their sex lives

[Celerity]

Elderly residents at a care home in southern Sweden - some aged as old as 90 - are being given 'pleasure baskets' filled with lubricants, dildos, penis pumps and penis rings to spice up their sex life, AFP's Camille Bas-Wohlert reports.

https://www.thelocal.se/20230210/swedish-home-helps-aged-residents-spice-up-their-sex-lives/


Liselott Klang, head of the Lindgården retirement home, has been working for a year on helping elderly residents enjoy sexual fulfilment. Photo: Sergei Gapon/AFP

“It’s a good book!” 97-year-old Nils exclaims, skimming through a brochure on sexual relations and desires among seniors, in the common room at his retirement home in Sweden. Here, at the Lindgården facility in the southern village of Broby, the 56 residents aged 65 and above can now avail of a recently added programme on how to lead a healthy sex life.

There are no sex toys or pornography lining the tidy halls. But when a new person moves in, they’re immediately offered an informal discussion on intimacy and desire. “The counsellor has a conversation with the client and asks him or her some of the questions we’ve established about sexual health,” Lindgården director Liselott Klang, 54, told AFP.

She started the project a year ago, initially as a way of allowing her employees to discuss the topic without embarrassment. “Previously, employees didn’t feel comfortable when they saw a resident masturbating in public, or really couldn’t understand why someone needed help booking a hotel room,” Klang explained.

To make the seniors feel more comfortable, the establishment has put together a “pleasure basket” with creams and sex toys the residents can buy. The basket contains, among other things, a “Please do not disturb” sign, various creams and lubricants, dildos, penis pumps and penis rings. Emilie Nilsson, a 39-year-old care assistant, admits she was originally apprehensive. “It was a bit scary at first,” she said. “But the more you work on it, the more you understand that it’s not just about sex. It’s about closeness, and that everyone needs a hug. So now it’s all very natural.”

‘It’s about intimacy’.......

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