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:
I know that some people have a hard time with peri care on the opposite sex but I for one don't you can perform your duties in a professional manner always have a witness (doctors do so why shouldn't we) and always maintain your pts dignity, this can be and uphill battle with some staff but remind them that what goes around comes around. The nurse that mistreated you will someday realize the error in her ways--hopefully before she harms another.
Thanks 3angels.
I have mixed feelings on the subject of having a witness. I've posted this before; I think that any witness/chaperone/assistant should be of the same sex as the pt when it comes to the intimate stuff. Otherwise the pt feels like it is a spectator sport. If the assistant is not of the same sex, then there is no protection from complaints of inappropriate behavior, as complaints can be made against two people as well as one. Having someone of the same sex as the patient reduces appearances of impropriety.
That said, it is likely that my incident would not have occured if anyone, of any sex, had been present with the nurse who hurt me. Of course, I would have had no way to predict what was to come so I would have objected to a second person in the room at the time. From now on, I will make sure a male is at least present during, if not actually doing the procedure or treatment. That assumes of course that there is time to set things up in advance. I dread the thought of a sudden emergency, but I have a wife who will make my wishes known.
58flyer, your story is horrific, I've said before, that I think your treatment, and the after effects were awful.
Would you be happy if your wife was the second person in a personal examination?
just as an impartial chaperone, as you can trust her above anyone else in the world.
Hope life is ok for you and the missus right now btw! You take good care now!
Thank You Danissa :icon_hug:
To answer your question, yes, my wife would be an excellent choice for a chaperone. She was present for my cysto last year.
Her sister was a nurse and would tell my wife funny stories about examining men and member sizes and such. My wife used to think that was funny until I revealed my experiences to her. Now it's not so funny. I think it angered her most when she learned of the reason for my infertility. It meant that I can't have a baby= she can't have a baby= WE can't have a baby. She is my best advocate now.
The only problem is I fear she might get violent if someone did something inappropriate during my treatment. I don't mean that someone might try something sexual with her there, but a common problem for us guys is privacy violations. During that cysto she stood guard at the door, and the last thing I was worried about was someone barging in. I asked her what she would have done if somebody did try to come in. She said she didn't know but it would have been worth going to jail over. :wink2: She was serious too.
We just did bed baths and urinary catheder insertion in nursing school a couple of months ago, and we were told that erection is just what happens. It is just a response, and you should just not even acknoledge it.
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:
Sorry for what happened to you. It is NOT taught in nursing school regarding intimate care to "flick, smack" or otherwise cause harm to any individual to any region of the body. If an erection were to occur, you would back away and return later to complete peri care, or a bed bath. I have NEVER heard of what you described occuring - this is assault and needs to be reported. I was in the military and never heard of that - though I do believe what you write and your experiences and those relayed to you.
I can understand regarding placing limits or honoring those wishes of patients who desire the same sex for personal interventions. That being said, I can agree that it is a double standard that men should have an escort to do pelvics (male docs) but female docs do not - or that a male nurse have a chaperone to insert a foley, or hand it over all together to the female nurse. I have never asked a male nurse to insert a foley into a male patient, and never would I unless the patient requests a male. But that is hugely unfair. What makes it ok that a female not have a male chaperone? This has been addressed before in another thread... but died out, I believe.
I think that many females don't believe men are as modest as females, honestly. That is the only conclusion I can deduce. I, speaking for only one female, provide the same privacy and respect to both male and female patients. We're all vulnerable and like to be in control as much as we can when we are ill.
cue frenzied taking of the lord's name in vain, and questioning of the moral consistency, sanity and lineage of the nurse in question.
The truth is, for quite a while there *was* effectively no choice. It's hard to say if men are growing or shrinking as a population in nursing, even today.
So the dilemma seemed to be that OP of the old thread hated reassigning people. Then some other users bravely came forth to relate things from their own pasts, things that only the truly soulless would argue against.
So, in fairness, we must acknowledge that physical and sexual abuse can go both ways, and if at all possible we should work to grant requests of that nature unconditionally. The alernatives, as best I can hash them out, are a) screening people's stories to see if they're "good enough" (e.g. sexual abuse versus "I just don't like women") or b) letting things sit status quo, not getting worse but definitely not improving.
And as men, we do have to accept the fact that there aren't very many of us to spread around - and only slightly more if you count CNA's, PCT's, and other fun acronym types - but this thread's OP is a fine example of how you might just have to knuckle down and work harder to meet the pt's request because it's the right thing to do for the pt.
one more thing, if I may.
One word: beer
And I'm only half kidding. Whether or not they give you the impression of modesty, men *do* have the right to it. It's one thing to pee in a line - everybody's gotta pee, the choices are to stare straight ahead and let fly or hold it in until everyone else leaves, and I'd think it a fair statement regarding either sex to say we're pragmatists where the bladder is concerned. It's another to strip down and wait on the doc to come check your prostate.
and if you've been in the military... you know showers and toileting is, unfortunately, a group thing (for many instances). So females have their own space and guys have theirs. You do what you have to do and get the heck out. I think after a while, male or female, everyone is in the same boat and modesty goes out the window.
and if you've been in the military... you know showers and toileting is, unfortunately, a group thing (for many instances). So females have their own space and guys have theirs. You do what you have to do and get the heck out. I think after a while, male or female, everyone is in the same boat and modesty goes out the window.
I haven't been in the military, but with high school athletics and gym class, I have done my time in the showers/lockers. Even now, we co-train with the military and use military facilities, so it's still a recent experience. I don't have any problem with that.
What I find troubling is group medical exams. Now that won't happen in the civilan world but it is common with military physicals. My sister in law was a military nurse and would tell me about how the men were examined, with females present. Of course the female exams weren't anything like that. I recall in high school where a volunteer doc came to the school to give the football team a physical. I suppose some of the guys couldn't afford to get a physical that was a part of the requirement to participate in sports. So they had this doc come in and give us all a free physical. The only cost was our dignity. If it was all guys, it would have been no problem. But this doc just had to bring along his "nurse" to help keep up with the forms. The coach could have done that. The "nurse" was wearing casual clothes. She stood right there with the doc while all the guys were paraded in front of her wearing just undershorts. While there was no prostate exam, one still had to drop the shorts to have the hernia and testicle exam. Right in front of the "nurse." I knew it was coming and on the appointed day I just handed the coach a statement from my family doc that I was cleared for sports and disappeared. The coach said that was unacceptable because I didn't endure what the rest of the team did. I won out because of the shortage of first string defensive ends.
Can you imagine if high school girls were examined in a similar fashion in the presence of a male HCP? Someone would go to jail.
58flyer, I have followed some of your other posts and all I can say is---That nurse may have robbed you of your innocence, your sense of security, your dignity, and your ability to have kids. Please don't let her rob you of your life and health.
I haven't been in the military, but with high school athletics and gym class, I have done my time in the showers/lockers. Even now, we co-train with the military and use military facilities, so it's still a recent experience. I don't have any problem with that.
What I find troubling is group medical exams. Now that won't happen in the civilan world but it is common with military physicals. My sister in law was a military nurse and would tell me about how the men were examined, with females present. Of course the female exams weren't anything like that. I recall in high school where a volunteer doc came to the school to give the football team a physical. I suppose some of the guys couldn't afford to get a physical that was a part of the requirement to participate in sports. So they had this doc come in and give us all a free physical. The only cost was our dignity. If it was all guys, it would have been no problem. But this doc just had to bring along his "nurse" to help keep up with the forms. The coach could have done that. The "nurse" was wearing casual clothes. She stood right there with the doc while all the guys were paraded in front of her wearing just undershorts. While there was no prostate exam, one still had to drop the shorts to have the hernia and testicle exam. Right in front of the "nurse." I knew it was coming and on the appointed day I just handed the coach a statement from my family doc that I was cleared for sports and disappeared. The coach said that was unacceptable because I didn't endure what the rest of the team did. I won out because of the shortage of first string defensive ends.
Can you imagine if high school girls were examined in a similar fashion in the presence of a male HCP? Someone would go to jail.
yeah, I wouldn't put my boys through that - or allow them to be included in that process because it was what the team went through. How stupid is that?? I know going into the Army, at MEPS there was a group physical with the females. We all wore our underwear (yes, it's true) and had to walk and squat and have them look at our arches. It was HUMILIATING. I forgot about that until just now....
That's just a caveat into urine drug tests... that's a whole other thread. You have to urinate while someone actually crouches and makes sure it's your urine... OMG, there's a reason why the military is for the young... you don't complain about that stuff. If I were to experience that now.... whole different response! :argue:
AND that nurse that was there with the football team could've turned her back to give the guys some privacy... geesh! What's wrong with people, anyway??? I would feel like a total pervert to stand there and watch....
to answer your question, yes, my wife would be an excellent choice for a chaperone. she was present for my cysto last year.
her sister was a nurse and would tell my wife funny stories about examining men and member sizes and such. my wife used to think that was funny until i revealed my experiences to her. now it's not so funny. i think it angered her most when she learned of the reason for my infertility. it meant that i can't have a baby= she can't have a baby= we can't have a baby. she is my best advocate now.
the only problem is i fear she might get violent if someone did something inappropriate during my treatment. i don't mean that someone might try something sexual with her there, but a common problem for us guys is privacy violations. during that cysto she stood guard at the door, and the last thing i was worried about was someone barging in. i asked her what she would have done if somebody did try to come in. she said she didn't know but it would have been worth going to jail over. :wink2: she was serious too.
i can understand that protective instinct - for my hubby and my boys, all bets are off if someone messes with them. i'll turn into a monster if it's needed without hesitation!!!! :flmngmd:
we just did bed baths and urinary catheder insertion in nursing school a couple of months ago, and we were told that erection is just what happens. it is just a response, and you should just not even acknoledge it.
an erection during a cath insertion... no - won't happen. the fear of the tube going into the member will definitely prevent that from occurring.
.......I know going into the Army, at MEPS there was a group physical with the females. We all wore our underwear (yes, it's true) and had to walk and squat and have them look at our arches. It was HUMILIATING. I forgot about that until just now.... ..............
I have asked several women who have been in the military about their entrance physicals. All of them, officer and enlisted, said it was a mirror image of a civilian exam. This is the first I've heard of a group exam. Well, I learn something new everyday.
Were any male docs, nurses, or corpsmen involved with this? I'm sure it would be easier if all involved were of the same sex. What did they do about the pelvic? Not in a group for that part I hope.
In my single days I dated 2 female naval aviators (not at the same time:bugeyes:). I asked them about how they were treated when I came to physicals and such. They had to go to SERE school like the guys but they didn't get the stripped naked treatment the men got.
OMG, there's a reason why the military is for the young... you don't complain about that stuff. If I were to experience that now.... whole different response! :argue: 
58flyer
290 Posts
Thanks 3angels.
I have mixed feelings on the subject of having a witness. I've posted this before; I think that any witness/chaperone/assistant should be of the same sex as the pt when it comes to the intimate stuff. Otherwise the pt feels like it is a spectator sport. If the assistant is not of the same sex, then there is no protection from complaints of inappropriate behavior, as complaints can be made against two people as well as one. Having someone of the same sex as the patient reduces appearances of impropriety.
That said, it is likely that my incident would not have occured if anyone, of any sex, had been present with the nurse who hurt me. Of course, I would have had no way to predict what was to come so I would have objected to a second person in the room at the time. From now on, I will make sure a male is at least present during, if not actually doing the procedure or treatment. That assumes of course that there is time to set things up in advance. I dread the thought of a sudden emergency, but I have a wife who will make my wishes known.