The importance of different situational factors that may alter acceptability judgments (i.e., gender, etiology of the disability, person's present level of autonomy, use of contraceptive devices, and partner's age and possible handicap) with regards to the sexuality of people with learning disability was examined. Participants were members of the community in France, aged 19-70. They were presented with several concrete cases in which a young person with a learning disability is having sexual intercourse. The participants' main concerns were centered on the consequences of the sexual relationships, and not on the relationships per se. Relationships that could lead to procreation were judged not acceptable, even if the child could be cared for by a non-handicapped parent. They were judged moderately acceptable in the cases when the person is autonomous, the partner is of the same age and is also handicapped, and the relationship is a protected one.

The respective attitudes of Mexican and French laypeople regarding regular sexual intercourse involving at least one person with learning disabilities were compared. The study was a replication of a study conducted in France in a community sample from Mexico (aged 22-75). Only three of the four factors that were found to have a significant effect among French participants-use of contraceptive devices, level of personal autonomy, and partner's age-were found to be significant among the Mexican participants. The partner's handicap factor was not significant, but the impact of the contraception factor was stronger among the Mexican participants than among the French participants. Contrary to what was observed among the French participants, among the Mexican participants the three factors were combined in a strictly additive way. That is, each factor contributed independently to the acceptability judgments.

The overall level of acceptability expressed by French people aged 18-84 years regarding sexual relationships among elderly persons was examined as well as the effect on acceptability of four factors: partners' age, marital status, duration of the relationship, and privacy. Four hundred and twenty seven participants were presented with 36 vignettes of a few lines that were composed according to a four within-subject factor design. A cluster analysis revealed three basic philosophies regarding acceptability of sexual relationships. For most participants, sexual relationships were always considered as acceptable. In other words, their acceptability was not conditioned by the concrete circumstances (in the nursing home) or the social circumstances (partners' marital status) in which they take place. For a minority of participants (18%), acceptability was strictly conditioned on the concrete condition of privacy in which they take place, and for another minority of participants (25%), it was conditioned on two factors: privacy, as in the preceding cluster, and marital status. Probably for most people in France, sexual relationships are considered a human right, and nursing institutions are expected to adapt to the sexual needs of elderly people, and not the reverse.