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.

Although nurses in almost every long-term care facility face daily challenges involving issues related to residents' sexual lives, guidelines for ethically supporting sexual activity are rare and inadequate. A decision-making framework was developed to guide care providers in responding to the sexual expression of residents in long-term care. The framework recommends that nurses should weigh the documented substantial benefits of having a sexual life against harm to the resident and others, and against offence to others. This article illustrates the use of this ethical decision-making framework by using the example of nurses supporting a resident's expression of his sexuality. It is suggested that nurses use this framework to guide their practice when related ethical issues arise.

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