Sex for women after 50 is important, court rules

It turns out that sex after 50 has value after all.

That was the judgment of Europe’s top human rights court when it rejected a decision by Portuguese judges that reduced damages to a middle-aged woman who could not have sex after a botched operation

The surgery — which occurred in 1995, when she was 50 — happened at “an age when sex is not as important as in younger years,” the judges ruled in 2014. Their decision provoked accusations of sexism and ageism at the time.

The woman, Maria Ivone Carvalho Pinto de Sousa Morais, now 72, challenged the decision, taking the matter to the European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg, France. On Tuesday, that court ruled, 5-2, in her favor.

“The question at issue here is not considerations of age or sex as such, but rather the assumption that sexuality is not as important for a 50-year-old woman and mother of two children as for someone of a younger age,” according to the majority’s ruling. “That assumption reflects a traditional idea of female sexuality as being essentially linked to childbearing purposes and thus ignores its physical and psychological relevance for the self-fulfillment of women as people.”

Morais’ lawyer, Vítor Manuel Parente Ribeiro, praised the ruling.

“It is the international recognition of a personal injustice,” he said. “She is a very physically weakened woman, and feels that the injustice she suffered in Portugal has been attenuated.”

He said the decision showed that, within Europe, “there are clear differences between the states, some of which have more open-minded attitudes than others.”

Morais was in her late 40s when she was given, in 1993, a diagnosis of a painful vaginal disease known as Bartholinitis. She underwent surgery in May 1995, the month she turned 50, at the gynecology department of what is now known as the Central Lisbon Hospital.

The operation left Morais with severe pain, depression and incontinence. She had trouble sitting and walking. She could no longer have sex.

She stopped visiting relatives and friends and going to the beach and the theater, and considered suicide. It turned out that one of her nerves had been injured during the surgery.

Morais sued, and in October 2013, a court ordered the hospital to pay about $93,000 in compensation for her physical and mental suffering, and about $18,000 for a maid to help her with daily chores.

Morais, her lawyer said, now plans to go back to the courts in Portugal to reopen the case and seek greater damages.