A female Muslim nurse in my girlfriend’s hospital was forced by her boyfriend to stop being an OR nurse, because “she saw the penises of other men in the OR.” And boyfriend didn’t like it.
People tend to sexualize the medical profession because often patients have to be undressed for medical examinations and surgeries — but people are also dead wrong.
Since I started a relationship with a urologist, hundreds of times — and I am not exaggerating even the slightest bit — have I been asked:
“Doesn’t it bother you that she touches the genitals of male patients on a daily basis — that she must have seen thousands of them by now ?”
(It doesn’t, and she touches female genitals too for that matter.)
People seem to forget that these are the genitals of patients, and if genitals have to be seen, usually there’s something wrong with them. Doctors see these genitals as medical objects — and that’s also how they touch them. (“There’s nothing sexy about a little wrinkled knob of skin which oozes pus !”)
So how do the surgeons preserve a patient’s dignity during surgery ?
By being medical professionals — plain and simple.