Homage to Medical Patient Modesty
Wow, I just discovered this web page.
http://www.patientmodesty.org
So much progress seems to come from the USA, this is another example. I can only dream of an organization like this in Germany.
Luckily enough, I am healthy at 61, but how much longer I can stay clear of hospitals, I cannot know. Whenever I mention to anybody, that I am more apprehensive of the ordeal of the sexual assault of being treated and nursed by men against my will than about getting sick, I am ridiculed as a prude.
Wow, I just discovered this web page.
http://www.patientmodesty.org
So much progress seems to come from the USA, this is another example. I can only dream of an organization like this in Germany.
Luckily enough, I am healthy at 61, but how much longer I can stay clear of hospitals, I cannot know. Whenever I mention to anybody, that I am more apprehensive of the ordeal of the sexual assault of being treated and nursed by men against my will than about getting sick, I am ridiculed as a prude.
But being prude comes from prudence, and
"Prudence is the characteristic of exercising sound judgment in practical affairs."
"It is often associated with wisdom, insight, and knowledge."
Finally, and for the first time in my life, I found likeminded people and even an organization, who back up my own perception and my own insights.
I am sick and tired of being considered as the aberrant one in a pseudo-progressive and pseudo-liberated society, where mistreating and humiliating women is a social norm.
I am sick and tired of being considered as the aberrant one in a pseudo-progressive and pseudo-liberated society, where mistreating and humiliating women is a social norm.
My reasons for prudence had started with my more intuitive perception of all the more scientific insights that I gained later by learning a lot about evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology.
I have very good reasons for my prudence:
The necessity of desensitization and denial to enable life in a crowded society does only cover the social and the personal space, but it does not include the intimate space. Unrelated people can interact and fulfil all requirement of every day life without any intrusion into each other's intimate space.
As a consequence of the spiral of desensitization and oversexation, as described in entry 237, society has given up the protection of the intimate space in a way, that cannot be rationally justified or warranted at all.
Based on my understanding of evolutionary biology and psychology, I claim:
The necessity of desensitization and denial to enable life in a crowded society does only cover the social and the personal space, but it does not include the intimate space. Unrelated people can interact and fulfil all requirement of every day life without any intrusion into each other's intimate space.
As a consequence of the spiral of desensitization and oversexation, as described in entry 237, society has given up the protection of the intimate space in a way, that cannot be rationally justified or warranted at all.
Based on my understanding of evolutionary biology and psychology, I claim:
- Nakedness inside the social, personal and intimate space is principally sexual, both as the reason for the display and the reception of the display by the instincts.
- Touch by a person of the opposite gender of the naked body is principally sexual. (I am not talking about handshakes etc.)
- When people consciously do not experience nakedness and touch as sexual, either on the perceiving or the initiating end, it is a result of psychological dynamics and social norms. It is an individual disposition, that cannot be generalized by projection upon others.
- When two persons agree on defining an interaction involving nakedness and touch of the naked body as not sexual, it is their freedom of choice. Not experiencing nakedness and heterosexual touch as sexual does not give anybody the right to define it as not sexual for others.
- When a woman experiences an interaction involving looking at and touching her naked body as sexual, her subjective experience counts and has to be respected, no matter how the man defines or experiences it and no matter, for what purpose he does it.
It is a basic human right:
"to be free and protected from unwanted sexuality"
http://www.faqs.org/periodicals/201010/2192565871.html
That includes a woman's right to restrict, to whom she displays and whom she allows to touch her naked body. It is her basic human right to restrict these sexual activities to a partner, whom she has chosen, and refuse them to and by any other man.
Touching and undressing a woman against her will is by law considered as the crime of sexual assault, when it is committed by an individual.
But here in Germany, the same crime is committed on women every day with the consent of the law, social norms and many insensitive and ignorant people. These completely irrational norms sort men into categories or harmless or harmful, which cannot be in any way justified as rationally. Biologically, every man is an animal with instincts, no matter his training and professional career.
Example: A pair of identical male twins. One is a warden in a prison, the other a male nurse.
Every visitor to the prison has to accept being checked for not smuggling in anything. But a woman has the legal right to only be examined by a female prison employee. The male warden of the twins is not allowed to do it.
But when the same woman has an accident and is brought into the hospital, without even being asked for her consent, the twin brother, the male nurse has his hands and eyes all over her naked body.
The general justification of this is the firm belief, that by habituation and desensitization, for male doctors and nurses, handling a patients body is indeed not different from handling a pig's body or a wooden statue. But for the woman, it is a sexual assault without her consent and a violation of her basic human rights.
But the situation is much worse than that a woman is only being handled as if she were an object lacking dignity.
The social norm forcing women into the hands of male doctors and nurses is based upon the wrong assumption, that indeed the woman's body is always experienced just as a piece of wood by the handling man. This is a myth.
The web and the newspapers are full with reports of sexual abuse by male doctors and male nurses.
"The database contained 728 sex-related orders taken against 542 physicians between 1981 and 1994 and 321 additional orders taken in 1995 and 1996. From 1989 to 1996, the number of physicians disciplined in each year increased from 42 in 1989 to 147 in 1996,"
"In California, there were disciplinary actions against 2,309 doctors, including 57 for sexual abuse of or sexual misconduct with a patient."
"According to a survey reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 10% of psychiatrists admitted to having sexual relations with their patients. In a July 1997 report, published by the Public Citizen Health Research Group, 28% of psychiatrists were disciplined for sex-related offenses"
"The number of all doctors disciplined for sexual misconduct doubled from 1990 to 1994. Of the total disciplinary actions taken against doctors, 5.1% were for sexual abuse of patients or other sexual misconduct."
"...reported elder abuse cases .... Three percent involve sexual abuse. "
Sexual abuse of patients is far from an exceptional event, it is an frequent occurrence. Unfortunately, it is more logical, that it happens than not. When a male doctor or nurse has his hands on a naked female body, the instinctive urges get triggered in him just as in any other man.
The doctors and nurses are the direct criminals, as far as they have chosen a profession, that needs more self-control and responsibility than they have.
When someone leaves meat on the table, and the cat eats it, who is to blame? The cat for following the instinct to eat, or the one, who puts the meat in the cats reach?
When someone forces a woman against her will naked under the hands of a man and she gets abused, who is to blame? The man for not controlling his instincts, or all those people, who coerced the woman into the situation?
If a woman asks in a hospital to be treated and nursed by women, but it is denied, and she then suffers abuse, those, who have made and enforced the rules are as guilty as the perpetrators. When men cannot control their instincts, then women need to be protected from getting under their power.
The cases of abuse are a clear indication, that nobody can ever guaranty to a woman, that a doctor patient relationship will not become a sexual relationship for him. The whole myth of the doctor patient relationship as never sexual is the common justification to force women into the hands of male doctors. Forcing women into a situation, that they experience as a sexual assault, based upon a myth is an outrage.
The tragedy in our modern society is the denial and ignorance of the power of the instincts and of their real danger to women. A woman like me, who is fully conscious and sensitive to the fact, that a male doctor is always a hazard of abuse, is ridiculed as a prude. Being desensitized and in denial in an oversexed world is the social norm and forced upon those, who know better.
Without reducing or excusing the perpetrator's guilt, those women, who think to be modern and no prudes and who therefore choose to consult a male doctor, bring the getting drugged and abused upon themselves by their own ignorance. But the male domination of society is responsible for this ignorance. It is male domination over the forming of rules, laws and norms of society, that has caused this disrespect for women's intimate space and the brainwashing of so many women to participate in this themselves.
The doctors and nurses are the direct criminals, as far as they have chosen a profession, that needs more self-control and responsibility than they have.
When someone leaves meat on the table, and the cat eats it, who is to blame? The cat for following the instinct to eat, or the one, who puts the meat in the cats reach?
When someone forces a woman against her will naked under the hands of a man and she gets abused, who is to blame? The man for not controlling his instincts, or all those people, who coerced the woman into the situation?
If a woman asks in a hospital to be treated and nursed by women, but it is denied, and she then suffers abuse, those, who have made and enforced the rules are as guilty as the perpetrators. When men cannot control their instincts, then women need to be protected from getting under their power.
The cases of abuse are a clear indication, that nobody can ever guaranty to a woman, that a doctor patient relationship will not become a sexual relationship for him. The whole myth of the doctor patient relationship as never sexual is the common justification to force women into the hands of male doctors. Forcing women into a situation, that they experience as a sexual assault, based upon a myth is an outrage.
The tragedy in our modern society is the denial and ignorance of the power of the instincts and of their real danger to women. A woman like me, who is fully conscious and sensitive to the fact, that a male doctor is always a hazard of abuse, is ridiculed as a prude. Being desensitized and in denial in an oversexed world is the social norm and forced upon those, who know better.
Without reducing or excusing the perpetrator's guilt, those women, who think to be modern and no prudes and who therefore choose to consult a male doctor, bring the getting drugged and abused upon themselves by their own ignorance. But the male domination of society is responsible for this ignorance. It is male domination over the forming of rules, laws and norms of society, that has caused this disrespect for women's intimate space and the brainwashing of so many women to participate in this themselves.
As long as desensitized and stupid women choose to consult male doctors, they unfortunately not only enable and perpetuate the abuse by those doctors for themselves, but also for those women, who know better, but have no choice.
Women could have a lot of power. If every woman would only consult female doctors, then the male doctors would be left to treat the men. If enough women would demand it, there would be the all female treatment and nursing for women in the hospitals and nursing homes.
