So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[HudsonHawk]

Not that anyone wants to hear this, but...I've never had a problem disrobing or otherwise being nude, whether in the locker room shower or passing through those scanners at the airport. It is what it is...you want me to turn to the right? I particularly like swimming in the nude, though admittedly having a pool in your own backyard makes it easier. Using the community pool down the street would be somewhat challenging. I guess we all have our own comfort and modesty levels. I'm not sure I'd want to return to ancient Greece, however, where pretty much all physical exercise was in the buff. The word "gymnasium" more or less literally means "a place to get naked".

 

[ChrisB]

Not that anyone wants to hear this, but...I've never had a problem disrobing or otherwise being nude, whether in the locker room shower or passing through those scanners at the airport. It is what it is...you want me to turn to the right? I particularly like swimming in the nude, though admittedly having a pool in your own backyard makes it easier. Using the community pool down the street would be somewhat challenging. I guess we all have our own comfort and modesty levels. I'm not sure I'd want to return to ancient Greece, however, where pretty much all physical exercise was in the buff. The word "gymnasium" more or less literally means "a place to get naked".

I am this way now, but I was quite the opposite in my teens.

 

[HanauMan]

Maybe this is gross, but I never showered after gym class, because I didn't want to be completely disrobed in front of people. I just went to a corner of the locker room and changed back to my normal clothes and hoped nobody would notice.

I did the exact same thing. Wasn't ideal if gym was first thing in the morning, but there was no way I was taking a communal shower!

 

[tonyb]

Not that anyone wants to hear this, but...I've never had a problem disrobing or otherwise being nude, whether in the locker room shower or passing through those scanners at the airport. It is what it is...you want me to turn to the right? I particularly like swimming in the nude, though admittedly having a pool in your own backyard makes it easier. Using the community pool down the street would be somewhat challenging. I guess we all have our own comfort and modesty levels. I'm not sure I'd want to return to ancient Greece, however, where pretty much all physical exercise was in the buff. The word "gymnasium" more or less literally means "a place to get naked".

Pretty much same here. I'm no Adonis, never have been, but I doubt the sight of my naked self is any more offensive to most reasonable people than that of any random person in the locker room.

As to airport scanners and the like ...

Any person so hard up for entertainment as to linger over images of me in all my unclothed glory is welcome to it. Glad I could be of service.

 

[GHT]

One of my trivial apprehensions about having the hip replacement was the fact that I was going to be catheterised. The indignity played on my mind, I need not have worried, by the time I was recovering from the operation, the urine bag had been emptied a number of times. The nurse told me that urine is a good barometer of recovery health and that she can see at a glance if I need encouraging to drink more water.

For the first few days after the operation, I could only move about slowly with the help of a zimmer frame. Bathing was a challenge, a bath, completely out of the question. Showering was difficult in that I couldn't lift the injured leg high enough to get over the shower tray, so it was a top to toe wash down. Let me tell you, two or thee days of that and you loose any inhibitions.

 

[3fingers]

Yes GHT, modesty dies quickly in the hospital. When I had my hip done my catheter was to be removed by a young nurse who was apparently nervous. She had previously had trouble with my IV falling out and I helped her with that myself. She attempted to remove the catheter and pulled me along with the tube. An older nurse came to help and reminded her to deflate before it would come out. Ah, so sorry. Sweet girl, but I had to wonder at her career choice.

 

[sheeplady]

I also have little modesty after cancer. I spent 39 sessions being placed with my upper half naked on a radiation table, with my body being adjusted by men who were 10 years younger and reasonably good looking.

Although it amused me to no end when these young men woukd carefully adjust my gown to cover the breast that wasn't being treated. Because, you know, with my treated breast naked and having you examine it carefully to make sure the machine lines up with my tattoos and you physically adjusting me, hot young man, I am most concerned that you may see my other nipple.

(It was sort of touching, and I know they did it out of kindness. But at least I found some huumor in it.)

 

[Zombie_61]

Yes GHT, modesty dies quickly in the hospital. When I had my hip done my catheter was to be removed by a young nurse who was apparently nervous. She had previously had trouble with my IV falling out and I helped her with that myself. She attempted to remove the catheter and pulled me along with the tube. An older nurse came to help and reminded her to deflate before it would come out. Ah, so sorry. Sweet girl, but I had to wonder at her career choice.

When it became necessary to have my appendix removed back in the mid-1970s I swear the hospital sent a *Candy Striper to start my IV. After stabbing my arm with the needle for 20 minutes and failing to successfully insert it into the vein, she finally went to get an experienced nurse to show her how to do it. The nurse did it in less than 5 seconds, then instructed Miss Candy Striper to wrap my arm with gauze to absorb the seeping blood.


*For anyone who might not know, a Candy Striper is a young (usually female) volunteer worker in a hospital or nursing home who has little or no medical or patient-care training.

 

[Ticklishchap]

It's a difficult and sensitive issue. I don't find it any more surprising that a transgendered person or someone in the process of transitioning (to qualify under the NHS for reassignment, an individual must first live full-time for two years as the gender to which they wish to transition) to male or female (male to female transitions being more common, I believe) would wish to opt for a single-sex environment than cis-gendered people. That said, sadly there are nowadays those who seek to exploit more tolerant policies for their own ends. Difficult one to police sometimes when balancing risk against discrimination.

An attendant problem to this is that many 'trans' activists seem to be demanding the right to 'self-definition' so that they don't have to go through a medical process. They seem to be backed by a large section of the political class, despite the implications for privacy and personal space for both 'real' men and 'real' women. This is an example of the triumph of doctrinaire theory over practical reality.
I also see the transgender movement as an existential threat to gay rights, or at the very least a Trojan Horse ('Trojan Mare'?!). The conflation of gay and trans by some campaigners - and sections of the media - revives damaging stereotypes of gay men as effeminate or wearing women's clothing, rather than just as 'chaps who like chaps'. Religious regimes like Iran also use 'gender reassignment' as a 'cure' for gay men, because it's less 'sinful' than male homosexuality. Here in the UK, Tim Farron - a homophobic Evangelical politician - is very vocally in favour of the transgender movement and this should ring extremely loud alarm bells.

 

[LizzieMaine]

When it became necessary to have my appendix removed back in the mid-1970s I swear the hospital sent a *Candy Striper to start my IV. After stabbing my arm with the needle for 20 minutes and failing to successfully insert it into the vein, she finally went to get an experienced nurse to show her how to do it. The nurse did it in less than 5 seconds, then instructed Miss Candy Striper to wrap my arm with gauze to absorb the seeping blood.


*For anyone who might not know, a Candy Striper is a young (usually female) volunteer worker in a hospital or nursing home who has little or no medical or patient-care training.

I have to go in for tests a couple of times a year, and in all that time there's only been one phlebotomist who ever could do my arm right. And they fired her. I don't know where they find these ones they've got working there now, but I think secretly they all think they're really acupuncturists. Or porcupines.

 

[sheeplady]

When it became necessary to have my appendix removed back in the mid-1970s I swear the hospital sent a *Candy Striper to start my IV. After stabbing my arm with the needle for 20 minutes and failing to successfully insert it into the vein, she finally went to get an experienced nurse to show her how to do it. The nurse did it in less than 5 seconds, then instructed Miss Candy Striper to wrap my arm with gauze to absorb the seeping blood.


*For anyone who might not know, a Candy Striper is a young (usually female) volunteer worker in a hospital or nursing home who has little or no medical or patient-care training.

When I was going through chemo, I had a medical port placed in my upper chest with a tube directly to my heart. To access it, they would have me brace myself stiff (holding onto the arms of the chair) and then basically stab me in the chest with a needle the size of a ball point pen (The port was under the skin and looked like I had a stack of implanted pioker chips). To do this, a nurse would have to use her arm strength, drawing her hand back like she was pitching a ball, and sometimed put her body weight into it.

I, being an agreeable sort, let the new oncology nurse "have a stab" at accessing my port one fine dat. After her third attempt, with my right side of my chest covered in blood (she had stabbed and withdrew 3 times, not getting the needle seated right), I told her she ought to go get her supervisor.

I felt so bad for her, she looked like she was going to cry, but I was only getting stabbed once more that day.

Prior to this I always let any student or new person practice on me (including the 2.5 days I had been in labor with my daughter... at a teaching hospital). Now I don't; I've had enough, and I'm more than happy to tell them the reason why I don't.

 

[GHT]

Yes GHT, modesty dies quickly in the hospital. When I had my hip done my catheter was to be removed by a young nurse who was apparently nervous. She had previously had trouble with my IV falling out and I helped her with that myself. She attempted to remove the catheter and pulled me along with the tube. An older nurse came to help and reminded her to deflate before it would come out. Ah, so sorry. Sweet girl, but I had to wonder at her career choice.

Forgive me, but your post did make me chuckle, the image of your manhood being stretched by a catheter conjured up something out of Loony Tunes.
All these tales of inexperienced cannulation is really shocking. It's not really that difficult, although it does take practice.
In the UK you can't sell your blood, you donate it free. When it's used the recipient doesn't pay either, it's all part of our NHS. Up and until a year ago I had the honour of being a regular blood donor. I remember 50/40/30/ years ago, there was always a doctor present at the donor sessions, it was the doctor who cannulated the donor. Then sometime around the 1990's it was decided that a doctor was a cost that wasn't needed and so the nurses did the cannulation, and what a butchery of a job some of them made it. Some couldn't even extract the cannula properly after donation, but there really was no need for that. Trained nurses in our hospitals and paramedics on our ambulances cannulate patients all the time. I just can't understand why some can but for others, it's a Roman blood sport.

 

[Edward]

An attendant problem to this is that many 'trans' activists seem to be demanding the right to 'self-definition' so that they don't have to go through a medical process. They seem to be backed by a large section of the political class, despite the implications for privacy and personal space for both 'real' men and 'real' women. This is an example of the triumph of doctrinaire theory over practical reality.

It's certainly a difficult area. I well recognise why people might be reticent to step in and be too firm at times, but absolutely care must be taken to ensure that rights provided in good faith are not abused.

I also see the transgender movement as an existential threat to gay rights, or at the very least a Trojan Horse ('Trojan Mare'?!). The conflation of gay and trans by some campaigners - and sections of the media - revives damaging stereotypes of gay men as effeminate or wearing women's clothing, rather than just as 'chaps who like chaps'. Religious regimes like Iran also use 'gender reassignment' as a 'cure' for gay men, because it's less 'sinful' than male homosexuality. Here in the UK, Tim Farron - a homophobic Evangelical politician - is very vocally in favour of the transgender movement and this should ring extremely loud alarm bells.

There can certainly be tension between the two, and I've certainly heard of cases where parents, for example, seek to raise their child as transgender because the child doesn't seem to fit in with their gender role norms - or, as you note, the kid might just be gay and they want to 'fix' them. I think a lot of people also struggle with the distinction between gender and sexuality, which doesn't help.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Nope, that Star Trek-perfumes are really fail, for me! I tested "James T. Kirk" in the drugstore, some minutes ago and it smells like absolute typical low-end/cheap "full-synthetic" stuff. Same on the Star Wars-perfumes next to it, in the shelve.

Nope, I didn't buy it. I bought finally one of the nice La Rive-dupes, sorry.

 

[HanauMan]

Forgive me, but your post did make me chuckle, the image of your manhood being stretched by a catheter conjured up something out of Loony Tunes.
All these tales of inexperienced cannulation is really shocking. It's not really that difficult, although it does take practice.
In the UK you can't sell your blood, you donate it free. When it's used the recipient doesn't pay either, it's all part of our NHS. Up and until a year ago I had the honour of being a regular blood donor. I remember 50/40/30/ years ago, there was always a doctor present at the donor sessions, it was the doctor who cannulated the donor. Then sometime around the 1990's it was decided that a doctor was a cost that wasn't needed and so the nurses did the cannulation, and what a butchery of a job some of them made it. Some couldn't even extract the cannula properly after donation, but there really was no need for that. Trained nurses in our hospitals and paramedics on our ambulances cannulate patients all the time. I just can't understand why some can but for others, it's a Roman blood sport.

Cannulation is indeed fairly straight forward most of the time. I've done it often enough in my past career as a RN. However there are many instances where it can be difficult and I have been involved in more than a few resus events where even the medical crash team found it extremely difficult to cannulate a patient. I found it easy for most normal patients, but less easy if they were obese or elderly with poor venous access or collapsing veins. I have witnessed many junior doctors having problems to cannulate patients but with practice they all achieved good techniques in the end, many times by being taught by competent nurses. Unfortunately junior doctors have so much to do these days that cannulation is a skill many don't get a chance to practice until they're qualified. Cannulation isn't a Roman blood sport but obviously if you're puncturing a vein you're going to get messy if you're not careful!

 

[Fading Fast]

...modesty dies quickly in the hospital.....

No truer words have....

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Nope, that Star Trek-perfumes are really fail, for me! I tested "James T. Kirk" in the drugstore, some minutes ago and it smells like absolute typical low-end/cheap "full-synthetic" stuff. Nope,

" It's perfume, Jim.....but not as we know it."

 

[Ticklishchap]

I mostly did the same, especially when the games teachers (a sizeable proportion of whom were, in my experience, bullies who were often insecure that they didn't teach a 'real' subject) started to police the showers and demand nudity. Mind you, in my contempt for the whole set-up I generally managed to avoid working up any sweat anyhow. Looking back, I rather resent how much time that could have been profitably spent on academic matters (to say nothing of the financial side of it) was wasted on games "lessons".

I seem to have been luckier than some of the other men who have commented on this because I never had any problem with the changing rooms (locker rooms in US English) or communal showers. It was simply something we did after games throughout my schooldays and I don't recall any embarrassment about it. Yes, we did shower nude but again we were boys of the same age who had been to the same boardings school for years and so there was nothing to be self-conscious about. The changing room was a place of banter, farts, mild practical jokes and the masters in charge had a good sense of humour even when they were giving us a 'bollocking' for bad behaviour. I just remember it as part of the way of life - showering after games, putting on a thick wool jumper (sweater to Americans) and going to the post-match match tea and toast. There was none of the faintly sinister resonance that others have mentioned.

 

[tonyb]

An attendant problem to this is that many 'trans' activists seem to be demanding the right to 'self-definition' so that they don't have to go through a medical process. They seem to be backed by a large section of the political class, despite the implications for privacy and personal space for both 'real' men and 'real' women. This is an example of the triumph of doctrinaire theory over practical reality.
I also see the transgender movement as an existential threat to gay rights, or at the very least a Trojan Horse ('Trojan Mare'?!). The conflation of gay and trans by some campaigners - and sections of the media - revives damaging stereotypes of gay men as effeminate or wearing women's clothing, rather than just as 'chaps who like chaps'. Religious regimes like Iran also use 'gender reassignment' as a 'cure' for gay men, because it's less 'sinful' than male homosexuality. Here in the UK, Tim Farron - a homophobic Evangelical politician - is very vocally in favour of the transgender movement and this should ring extremely loud alarm bells.

"Self-definition." Therein lies the rub.

Sure, every person can choose for his- or her- or non-gender-binary-self how to identify or "define." But demanding that others accede to that "definition" is to believe that a person can control how others perceive that man or woman or non-gender-binary individual.

A person born male who wishes to present as female does me no injury. And, as I have no control over what that person thinks, I won't waste any energy on it. But if what I see is a man in makeup and women's clothing, well, I'm not about to apologize for that.

 

[Ticklishchap]

Looking back, I rather resent how much time that could have been profitably spent on academic matters (to say nothing of the financial side of it) was wasted on games "lessons".

This came up on another thread, but having had to play Rugger through my A Level year, often on Saturdays as well as weekdays, I marvel that I managed to get any work done at that time! But being in the House team gave me a certain degree of status (meaningless) that I wouldn't have had otherwise - ironically more than I received for academic achievements.