Since the "man in my room" thread got closed, I thought I would try a different track. I want to focus on something a little different.
We know the emotional responses we got to the idea of men providing intimate care of women. What I want to discuss is the issues affecting the intimate care of men by women.
If any of you have read my prior posts on this subject, you are aware of my own difficulties with opposite sex care. To recap, my own experience involved a sexually abusive situation. I am male, and when I was in the hospital as a teenager, the female nurse decided that I needed a bed bath. So that is what she proceeded to do. And much to my embarrassment, I got an erection during said bath. I wasn't aroused, it just happened. As any guy can tell you, we just don't have direct control over that function. This nurse decided she had the "cure" and proceeded to strike me in the scrotum. A lot of damage was done, physically and emotionally. One testicle healed in way that would not allow me to father children (antibodies). I'm skipping over a lot of detail in the interest of brevity, but that's what happened. :imbar
I have heard over the years many comments as to a female nurse's reaction to the male erection. A number of times I have heard reference to causing a pain stimulus to stop the erection from occurring. The stimulus usually involved striking the genitalia with an object or by using the middle finger to "thump" or "flick" either the member or a testicle. I have heard several members of the military tell me this was done to them when they were hospitalized while in service, sometimes while recovering from combat wounds. In my situation, it could be that this nurse didn't get the desired result from just using the middle finger, so she resorted to something more forceful.
My questions to you all is this. How widespread is this? How many of you learned to do that in school? Maybe learned it after school? Have any of you ever done it to your male patients? Ever hear other nurses talk about it?
I'm not trolling and I'm not joking. It happened to me and others that I know of. It would be nice to get enough information together to come up with an article for a major nursing publication. That would bring the issue to the forefront and maybe launch an initiative to stop this brutal practice. Men treated this way could easily be your father, husband, son, brother, other family member, significant other, best friend, neighbor, or coworker.
One other thing. Given the overwhelming presence of women in nursing, male patients are often expected to just accept intimate care from women nurses without complaint. Often times there may be no other choice. But other times there are. It appears to me that female nurses (and other medical staff) have such unlimited access to male patients that they practically take it for granted. Many of the rules in place defining or limiting what male providers can do to female patients often don't apply to females in the care of men. I realize it varies among different facilities, and I have read on this forum that there are some men doing intimate procedures on female patients. However, I suspect the majority of facilities do put some kind of limit on what the men can do. Gender bias results when members of one sex are held to rules that the other sex is exempt from. The outcome of the bias is an imbalance where it is difficult for the female providers to effectively empathize with the male patients. That results the females taking an almost lackadaisical, casual, or blase' view of the modesty and privacy needs of male patients. For me it has been an uphill battle many times when receiving care just to get them to close doors or curtains, or provide draping. It's not the men I have this problem with, it's mostly women. To me treating a patient with respect and privacy specifically means covering my exposed body for comfort. To deprive me of that is to deny their obligations. I want female medical personnel to value my privacy as much as they value their own.
Having gone through infertility treatments with my wife and have stood next to her as she received care and I have noticed that privacy is never an issue. During breast exams only one side was exposed at a time. I have endured several exams where I was instructed to strip down to just underwear and wait for the doc. When the doc enters the room there is a moment where anybody outside can see past the doc. When the doc gets to the genital exam you have to lower the shorts to midthigh so you are essentially naked, and then have to bend over the table for the digital. I know men who have had this done by female docs. Absolutely cruel. At least I have only had male docs for this. I have had my share of ER visits over the years, GSW, plane crash, fire/smoke injuries, etc. Every time I have had to battle for my privacy/dignity/decency. When you are hurt that's the last thing you should have to worry about.
Any other men here experience this? Your thoughts on this ladies?
I have nothing against women. I find myself in agreement with many women here when it comes to personal care. Please don't think I'm on a tirade. If we can get some constructive dialog going maybe we can learn and do better for others.
Let's keep it nice so the mods don't close the thread. :wink2:
