The politics of poledancing in a nursing home
As one Dorset home puts on a display, Max Davidson says we’ve become far too squeamish about sex and old age
Isn’t there enough for the puritans of the 21st century to get indignant about without them having a hissy-fit at pole dancing at – shock horror – a care home?
Yet pictures of dancers in hot pants and leotards strutting their stuff before the elderly residents of the Fairmile Grange care home in Christchurch, Dorset have been enough to give local councillors the vapours. “Inappropriate,” said one. “I’m staggered,” said another. Lips have been pursed across the county. Disgusted of Christchurch is no doubt busy composing a stiff letter to the local newspaper.
Oh dear, oh dear. What is it with these self-appointed guardians of taste and decency? Are they so out of touch that they don’t know the difference between lap dancing, and all the sleaziness associated with it, and pole dancing, which is altogether more respectable?
Far from being lewd and sexually provocative, pole dancing at its best requires such acrobatic skill that it is well on its way to becoming an Olympic sport, akin to synchronised swimming.
And even if some of the residents did get the teeniest sexual frisson at the sight of young women in hot pants swirling around a metal pole, what business is it of the local busybodies to begrudge them that? Are people supposed to be dead from the neck down once they enter such homes? What would the busybodies rather the residents were doing? Playing bingo? Watching repeats of Dad’s Army?
We seem, as a society, to have become quite extraordinarily squeamish about older people and sex. There is a tacit assumption that if someone of 80 or 90 has amorous thoughts, let alone does something overtly sexual, they are being somehow undignified.
Or, that catty little put-down, “not acting their age”. As people enter their twilight years, double standards greet them at every turn. If an 80-year-old woman looks after herself, dresses well and does not look a day over 70, she is widely admired.
But if she takes a 50-year-old lover, or wears a sexually provocative outfit, the knives will be out for her. How dare she act like a wanton! At her age!
As for those doddery 80-year-old men whose eyes light up at the very sight of an attractive young woman, and who sometimes show their appreciation in less than subtle ways, the chorus of condemnation knows no bounds. They are regarded as lechers and perverts who should be kept under constraint.
Such prejudices are widely shared, but in an age where people live longer and longer, they bear less and less relation to reality.
Isn’t it time we stopped pigeonholing the elderly and acknowledged a simple but important truth: that frail limbs and white hair can often conceal sharp minds and vivid imaginations?
Old age can be depressing enough as it is, with physical faculties in decline. But what can make it 10 times worse is other people having rigid, preconceived ideas about what are appropriate and inappropriate activities for senior citizens.
Not every octogenarian will want to take up bungee-jumping. Some will prefer to learn quilting or catch up with their Trollope. But, in old age, more than ever, freedom of choice is the golden thread that makes a life worth living.
The residents of Fairmile Grange, as the company running the home were quick to point out, were not herded into a room and forced to watch the pole dancing, kicking and screaming. They chose to watch it, having first been presented with a menu of other possible activities and entertainments.
That is what happens in good care homes, and that is what should happen. The residents are not zombies in a waiting-room for the crematorium, but retain many of the interests and enthusiasms of their younger years. They need activities, stimuli, food for the brain.
The last time I visited my 93-year-old aunt in her care home in south London, the entertainment laid on for the residents and their families consisted of belly-dancers in one room and owls in the other room.
We opted for the owls, and very fine they were, too, apart from when they were leaving deposits on the residents. But we could have taken the belly-dancers in our stride, and that includes my aunt. There were, incidentally, no reports of male residents keeling over with shock at the sight of a bare female midriff.
Funding care for the elderly is one of the great challenges facing our generation. It will place severe demands on the Exchequer, as well as on individuals. But the challenge will not become easier if we underestimate the natural vitality present in older people.
And if care homes become dour, joyless institutions, where sex is a dirty word and nothing racier than a party balloon is ever seen, we will all be the losers.