Thursday, October 28, 2010

Are Women Ready to Sexually "Come Out" Of The Medical Cultural Closet?


Women seek equality, gender equity, and/or equal societal standards. Whatever terms we use, it is certain that we want to be seen for our unique strength and accountable for our weakness. This is the attitude that makes us girls of perserverance and later women of character. But how much truth is involved in equity? Are we willing to set aside cultural norms to achieve raw honesty? Are we willing to be seen as the gender who uses the truth when it is handy only to discard it when it's not?
There are those who seem to see women that way. We say we want all things equal, until equality becomes tough. We want the big jobs as long as they are not too messy. And with the topic at hand, we love the options that allow medical modesty to be easier for us, but are a big part of why it is so difficult for men. Afterall, 94% of nurses are women, and many do not support men's modesty issues or consider it a strong healthcare issue.
Are these people correct? Is this who we are? Or maybe...
Female nurses have always taken care of men, so why the "big deal now" with modesty and embarrassment? We are not a sexual threat. Nudity means very little to us. No need to feel humiliated in front of us.....right? Why does it even matter?
So we ask ourselves why. Why are we the exception? Why are women often considered the sexually benign one in the room? And more importantly, why is this alright with us?
The medical arena often tells us that men are visually stimulated (women not so much) and they must therefore exercise some control over intimate situations involving the opposite gender. We see this attitude often when explaining why females can be used for either gender in intimate situations, and chaparones should be used for female patients involving male care. However, recent studies on female sexuality are finding women to be as visually stimulated as men involving the nude form with physical arousal times virtually the same.
Perhaps it is time for society to reconsider female sexuality and stop the outdated stereotypes that women are physically maternal and only emotionally sexually stimulated. Stop the notion that women only find nude men attractive if they are dipped in chocolate and carrying gifts of strappy shoes. We are sexual. We are neither the neutral or invisible gender in the room, and we will give the same respect to everyone that we deserve ourselves. We are not so different after all.
Men might have a better chance at modesty issues if society were honest about both genders.
Are we ready to be that honest? Or did the big job suddenly become too messy....