[pumpkin1984]

Nurses have always been dipicted as sexy women coming into a patients rooms to give them a sponge bath Or wearing tight-fitting outfits, and high heels. Do you feel nursing is sexy? When you tell others that you are a nurse, do they think its hot? And do you feel a man being a nurse is as sexy as a woman who is a nurse? Are nurses sex icons of the past, present, and future?

[Tait]

I think we can thank the porn industry in part for this, and a bit of human nature.

I think the idea of being cared for, and "cared" for kind of go hand in hand in fantasy. Nurses for the most part walk in at your most vulnerable, take your life in thier hands, and do thier best to keep you safe, and see you get well.

I have to say, even my most attractive patients, have the same "hospital" smell that definitely eliminates me from wanting to put on my "naughty nurse" outfit.

I think the image will continue to be a stigma as long as there are Halloween costumes and "sexification" of the role in media. I do believe that patients are able to seperate out the fantasy and the reality when they are in the hospital, and to date I have only had one true "letcherous" guy that I had to have a chaperone with. And I am NOT a buxom blonde with a 23" waist!

Nursing is an attitude, and its image is propagated through the actions of its members. I just keep being professional, and expecting the respect I deserver.

Tait

PS. And yes, my avatar can be considered a propagation of the "naughty nurse" image and I used her in a paper on the subject, but I just can't resist her devilish look!

[tanthalas]

Why is nursing considered a sexy career? Simple. Because I'm in it.

[Spidey's mom]

What about the naughty secretary with the bun and the glasses who takes the glasses off and lets her hair down?

Or the librarian?

Or the teacher?

Or the policewoman?

Or the governness?

Every occupation women are in has been made into a sexual fantasy by someone.

steph

[AnthonyD]

When I come home "smelling like hospital" (as my wife describes it)... she certainly doesn't find it sexy... LOL

[Lu13]

Cuz I am sexy, is why!!!!

[nyapa]

There are a few careers where men are considered sexy too. Those in the physical trades for example.

Then there is always Johnny Depp and Harrison Ford...

Addit: Just looked at my original comment. There are women in the physical trades, just like there are men in so called 'traditionally female' roles. And I just broke the cardinal rule by following society's gender based assumptions!

[elizabells]

I once went on a date with a guy who said he found the fact that I was a nurse really sexy because he loved that I'd have "the capacity to take care of him". That was our last date.

And let me say, when I come home stumbling tired, smelling like breast milk and ampicillin and IntraLipids, with my makeup smudged and ponytail frazzled, in wrinkled scrubs with some unidentified stain on the left leg (always the left!) even my normally nuclear sex appeal suffers a bit.

[Michigan RN]

Originally Posted by elizabells

I once went on a date with a guy who said he found the fact that I was a nurse really sexy because he loved that I'd have "the capacity to take care of him". That was our last date.

Yep, thats the first sign of a date gone bad. Haven't met anyone who thinks being a nurse is sexy. Sorry, it's really not that sexy when you come home and like another poster said "smell like hospital"...yuck.

[RNperdiem]

Unlike many other jobs, nurses(typically young women) would be alone with men(often unclothed). Often this could be compared with a less wholesome service provided.
In my vintage nursing books, there was a lot of controversy about female nurses putting catheters in male patients or doing personal care on men. Often male orderlies were hired to perform these functions.
When Florence Nightingale took her first group of nurses to Crimea, she faced this "sexy" issue. It is no accident that the nurses she chose were older women and nuns.