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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Modesty
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
Last weekend we visited a friend, a young woman from our church, who is recovering from a serious operation.
At one point in the conversation she asked my wife to look at her scar and give an opinion on how it was healing, and then started to take off her jeans.
I stood up to leave the room, and she said, “You don’t need to go, you’re only KC”.
As it happened I did go into the next room, and extended my experience of life by joining her kids in watching a DVD about some anthropomorphized pig called Peppa, but I have been brooding on her words ever since.
Was it a compliment, ie, “You’re a father figure whom I don’t find threatening or embarrassing”?
Was it an unintended insult, ie, “You’re so old and past it, that it is inconceivable that these days you would find the sight of a young woman removing her pants at all significant”?
Or was it merely a case of my not keeping up with changing concepts of modesty?
Has modesty always been a fluid and subjective concept?
My parents never appeared naked in front of my siblings and me, and we never appeared naked in front of our kids, but there have always been parents for whom this wasn’t, and isn’t, a big deal.
We allowed our kids to play naked in the garden in warm weather when they were toddlers, which upset my parents-in-law, and these days my son and daughter-in-law shower and bath with their kids.
Recently we took our grand-children to a family-friendly science museum where there were unsegregated toilets (there was no male urinal, only cubicles).
Are there any permanent principles in this area which go beyond mere common-sense and safety issues, or is it all a matter of cultural (and family and individual) and generational relativism?
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Has modesty always been a fluid and subjective concept?
Yes, totally. Some tribes in Africa still don't consider covering breasts to be necessary. Hurrah - someone who recognises that breasts are not genitalia!
My Mum often sat on the loo chatting to me while I was in the bath, and vice-versa. We were a very unselfconscious family - and that was back in the 60s.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
I agree that is both a fluid concept and in many ways a culturally dependent one. Here kids [boys more so than girls] will often play naked on their family land until they are 8, 9 or 10 years old and nobody even blinks at the idea. A 9/10 year old shouted hello and waved to me a week or two ago as I passed his house and he was completely naked.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
In Britain we have a strange mixed-up response, where children are much more covered up than they used to be (fears of paedophilia put paid to innocent nakedness), but at the same time young teenagers are encouraged to show much more of themselves, particularly using mobile phones and webcams than ever before (peer pressure).
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
I have recently had an operation which necessitated a stay in hospital. The incision was in the stomach area.
When one of the nurses came to change the dressing, she carefully made sure that she covered up my "private bits" (I'm male) with a little towel, even though this slightly got in her way.
I did think, "This is really not necessary, she's a nurse after all, just doing her job, who has certainly seen the human body before". But I suppose other people might not feel the same way.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Meerkat
Suricata suricatta
# 16117
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Posted
Yes, we do have a strange approach here in the UK, I think. There are 'standards' to be adhered to when out in public (unless one is on a 'clothing-free' beach, for example)... and some of these are covered by law. Fair do's.
Some people feel that the body should be covered at all times and in all places. Some don't. Each to their own... and don't offend the sensibilities of the other.
What you do at home is your choice. How you are clothed (or not) in front of family and friends depends to a great extent how comfortable you all are with parts of the body which would be covered in the street being uncovered at home.
I am perfectly comfortable at home without clothing. I am perfectly comfortable with others being naked in front of me. I would not go out in the street without being suitably attired. I temper my 'textileness' at home or in the (enclosed) back garden depending upon who is around. I know who is comfortable with it and who is not. We're all OK that way.
I was at the beach this Summer. It was not a naturist beach, but females generally go topless there without any problems and little kids go naked. I keep my distance from those families, for fear of being accused of looking at the family for a moment too long etc.
A family group of mother, father and daughter were on the beach, walking along the shoreline not far from me & the good lady. Mother was in her 40's, topless. Father was wearing shorts. Daughter was, I would GUESS, about 12 or 13 and naked. Nobody batted an eyelid, but I did think it was pushing the boundaries a bit, as it was not a naturist beach. If *I* had been naked, I am sure that there would have been a reaction - and not a favourable one!
Confusion reigns!
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Simples!
Posts: 160 | From: Herts, UK | Registered: Jan 2011
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
When one of the nurses came to change the dressing, she carefully made sure that she covered up my "private bits" (I'm male) with a little towel, even though this slightly got in her way.
When I was last in hospital, the surgeon was equally coy when checking some lower abdominal incisions. I'm thinking: good god man, you've just performed a laparoscopic hysterectomy on me. There's nothing here you haven't seen in CinemaScope.
As you get old I think you tend to muffle up not from modesty but more out of consideration for others.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
It falls under an NHS standard audited by the Care Quality Commission - outcome 1 of the 15 essential standards of care - compliance by services and clinicians is not optional. I am fairly sure that not covering the patient's genital area, if you didn't have a clinical need to look at it, would be considered a violation of the patient's dignity and a failure to treat them with respect.
If you repeatedly fail any core standard, they can basically sack the board of the trust.
[ 01. February 2013, 16:53: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
(Doubleposting to add: compliance with the 16 core standards is required in order to be a registered health care provider in the UK, and if you are not registered you cannot legally provide that service.)
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
As it happened I did go into the next room, and extended my experience of life by joining her kids in watching a DVD about some anthropomorphized pig called Peppa, but I have been brooding on her words ever since.
Was it a compliment, ie, “You’re a father figure whom I don’t find threatening or embarrassing”?
Was it an unintended insult, ie, “You’re so old and past it, that it is inconceivable that these days you would find the sight of a young woman removing her pants at all significant”?
I'm in the possibly-more-litigious-minded US, and IMHO you did exactly the right thing. A possibility you didn't raise is that of the young woman quite deliberately placing you in a potentially difficult position.
No idea what you do IRL, but if the young woman in question were to describe this incident (assuming you'd remained present) sometime, somewhere down the road, it's open (even though your wife was standing by) to malicious misinterpretation by anybody who cared to produce one.
That young woman would do well to have a care for others' reputations. Her actions, IMO, were disrespectful and potentially harmful.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Margaret
Shipmate
# 283
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Posted
On holiday in Morocco last year I was intrigued by the differences in Moroccan and British ideas of modesty. I had a massage in the hotel spa, and also a hammam-type scrub treatment. Morocco is pretty moderate as far as public modesty goes - probably most women cover their hair, though a lot of them combine hijab with jeans. But modest dressing in public is the norm, and I expected much the same sort of thing in private that I get when I have a massage here - towels draped over erogenous zones and avoidance of massage too near them. But not at all - I had to take everything off, and got massaged all over, including my breasts. It was great, but not at all what I was expecting! I think it's a different approach to modesty - women and men are careful in front of one another, but between women there is no need for any concealment. Fascinating, and enlightening.
Posts: 2456 | From: West Midlands UK | Registered: May 2001
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Jigsaw
Shipmate
# 11433
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Posted
As a student nurse in the early 1970's, I witnessed a good example of preserving modesty - A senior staff nurse and I were bed-bathing a very weak old man. She said to him: How about we wash you up as far as possible, and down as far as possible, then we'll hand you the flannel and you can wash "Possible".
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You are not alone in this.
Posts: 743 | From: Snorbens, UK | Registered: May 2006
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Ah, the joys of euphimisms, when I was a health care assistant we'd one staff member who wrote in the notes that we needed to ensure that one the ladies we cared for was getting her creams applied as prescribed - because she had a sore patch on her undercarriage.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Of course there is nothing that is more culturally relative than modesty--as I've said before, it's not a virtue, just a custom--but I do recall with some sadness how we truly believed, back in the '60s and '70s, that we would finally bring an end to modesty and the body shame it's based on. Oh well--overoptimistic as usual.
(A hip guy I knew, about 1972, said "We sent our kids to public school--it just made bathroom door-lockers out of 'em).
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
I think sometimes something weird happens to people when they go into hospital.
Bedclothes, nighties and pyjamas get flung aside with wild abandon at the slightest enquiry. I'm immune to it now - but I still have some mental scars from my curacy where a polite enquiry about 'what's brought you in, then' was almost bound to lead to full-frontal revelations of an intimate nature (both male and female). One gentleman was very quick to do this on one occasion and my surprize was such that it actually took me a few moments to realize that what he was really showing me was his double amputation above the knees.
I put it down partially to the fact that once in hospital the patient gets so used to being poked and prodded, bed-panned, wiped and orifice-checked that one more 'reveal' makes no difference.
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
When I was working n a hospital in another capacity, I was collared to act as a female chaperone for the medical photographer. It so happened he was photographing the surgical outcome for mastectomy.
It was a very awkward situation, the patient didn't know me from adam - and the whole focus of the situation was to photograph the scars. So she started to tell me the story of her diagnosis and treatment.
I imagine she thought I had seen that kind of thing before and had been told about the whole thing in advance etc. I hadn't, but just tried to be supportive and helpful. I hope it worked !
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Oh wow, poor Anselmina, I'd want a moment of preparation for that myself.
I agree it's not KC's age or whatever, it's the hospital culture. I'm usually a more modest than average person but after a short time in the hospital I start seeing my body the same way the staff does, that is, as an interesting medical phenomena and not anything to do with sex at all.
When I was in recently with a banged up leg, the orthopedist came in with his gang of handsome young interns and demonstrated the interesting way he could push on the outside of my knee and make it cave inward because the MCL ligament hadn't healed. They all gathered around with great fascination and took turns pushing on it until I finally had to say, "That's enough now." They looked up at my face in total surprise to see a woman's face at the top. Then we all laughed --they were that cute!
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
When I had stitches after the birth of my first son it was a new junior doctor who did the sewing - his first stitches. It took him ages, but he did a very neat job - and the midwife proceeded to show off his work to every member of staff in the vicinity.
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
My best friend had a quadruple bypass just after Christmas. When I visited him, he - usually a very modest man - made no bones about showing me his new-scars-to-be. I told him I had him beat hollow - he knows - and we had a careful giggle. At least he did.
It's culture of a sort - hospital culture.
What WW said, too. Indians are very modest - even the kids, in public. But if you are caught unawares, no one makes a big fuss about it.
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
My best friend and I went to Finland last July and were invited to enjoy the sauna 'the Finnish way', which is everyone naked as a jaybird. Normally all the girls together, and boys separately. And married couples by themselves. Had I been thirty years younger, perhaps.
Finally, the eldest daughter (who had spent the preceding year in Canada as an exchange student) suggested that my friend and I might like to take the sauna without the rest of the female part of the family. We were still prodded to do such unclothed.
I think we had four saunas during that time. We either wore bathing suits or took turns while one guarded the door.
Shhh! Don't tell our hosts! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Just recently I had some skin tags removed by a female nurse practitioner. Most of them were in my arm pits, but I did have one in the groan area. After she got done with the ones on my arms, she asked if there were anymore. I mentioned the one in my groan area, but said I would be willing to come back to have a male doctor remove that. She said no need, she was willing to do it, if I was willing to let her. She was very specific about asking permission. I told her to go right ahead. But when she did it, she was also very careful to keep my genitalia covered.
Here in the Pacific Northwest we have an odd set of laws. Idaho has a law that requires primary genitalia be covered, but secondary body features (breasts) need not be covered. So every so often a group of young women in a town nearby will have a car wash topless. They get a lot of business.
Washington and Oregon have no specific laws against nudity, but they do have laws against obscene behavior. In Portland there is a young lady who is known to bicycle through the city naked. As long as she is not doing it obscenely, it is permitted. Seattle had a nude bicycling club. Spokane has a nude race every spring. All legal.
There are a number of hot springs throughout the Northwest were clothing is optional. It is just an unwritten rule that if you go to some of the more remote hot springs you will expect to see nude people.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
... my groan area ...
And where might that be?
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
I get that naked human bodies become wallpaper to medical staff, but they seem to forget that "civilians" aren't so comfortable. When my brother was 14 (painfully self-aware) he was being wheeled out of outpatient therapy room on a gurney when his surgeon happened to be passing by and decided to take a check out how his skin graft-- on his bum-- was healing. So he takes a peek right there in the crowded waiting room.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Smudgie
Ship's Barnacle
# 2716
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Posted
One thing I find amusing about the notion of modesty is the shyness we seem to feel about our nightclothes. Why is it so embarrassing to be in another's company in your nightclothes, when a pair of fleecy pyjamas and a thick dressing-gown cover you up so much more thoroughly than some of your daytime clothing might.. and you'd even feel comfortable going swimming with that person wearing only a swimsuit. It's clearly nothing about layers, or amount of body covered/revealed. It's purely about the "stated purpose" of the clothing.
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Miss you, Erin.
Posts: 14382 | From: Under the duvet | Registered: Apr 2002
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Yes, context is all - at the swimming pool people will quite happily walk around in the unisex changing area in only a cossie or trunks. But imagine the protests if the changing rooms in the town centre shops became unisex!
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Smudgie:
One thing I find amusing about the notion of modesty is the shyness we seem to feel about our nightclothes.
Erm. I was in a supermarket one evening about three weeks ago when a mother was doing her shopping with her two children - aged about 12-ish I suppose. The children were wearing pyjamas and dressing gowns. I do wish people wouldn't, in public places.
[ 02. February 2013, 17:06: Message edited by: Ariel ]
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
... my groan area ...
And where might that be?
Probably quite close to the 'yitt' - as in 'I fell through a hedge and I have the thorns in me yitt'.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I was in a supermarket one evening about three weeks ago when a mother was doing her shopping with her two children - aged about 12-ish I suppose. The children were wearing pyjamas and dressing gowns.
I do hope it wasn't Tesco: they banned it three years ago.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
... my groan area ...
And where might that be?
Probably quite close to the 'yitt' - as in 'I fell through a hedge and I have the thorns in me yitt'.
That sounds more like the "ouch" area!!
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I was in a supermarket one evening about three weeks ago when a mother was doing her shopping with her two children - aged about 12-ish I suppose. The children were wearing pyjamas and dressing gowns.
I do hope it wasn't Tesco: they banned it three years ago.
No, Sainsbury's. I'm hoping it was a one-off but I don't normally go there at that time so who knows. Their mother was wearing normal clothes.
I suppose I should be grateful that they were wearing anything at all.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Smudgie
Ship's Barnacle
# 2716
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Posted
I wouldn't dream of going shopping in pyjamas, but sometimes get cross with myself, for example, for how self-conscious I feel running out to get the bins out in time for the bin lorry (which comes at silly-o'clock on a Friday morning) whilst wearing my thick fleece pyjamas and my coat, or opening the door to the postman (i.e. in my own home) in my dressing gown. Why on earth do I feel the need to hide behind the door and peep my head round to speak to him, as though I were scantily clad, even if it is very early in the morning or I've actually got out of bed because I am unwell? And yet I'd open the door quite happily in T-shirt and shorts, which is a far less pretty sight, I can tell you!
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Miss you, Erin.
Posts: 14382 | From: Under the duvet | Registered: Apr 2002
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jigsaw:
As a student nurse in the early 1970's, I witnessed a good example of preserving modesty - A senior staff nurse and I were bed-bathing a very weak old man. She said to him: How about we wash you up as far as possible, and down as far as possible, then we'll hand you the flannel and you can wash "Possible".
A story told by my late mother in law, who trained as a nurse in southern Ontario in the 1930s. Her actual phrase was "...as far as possible and then give "possible" a rub." But then, that was the version told my wife when she was a child, when the issue was verbal prudery, not sexual harassment.
John
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
... my groan area ...
And where might that be?
I'm sure the gentleman knows what he's talking about!
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Zacchaeus
Shipmate
# 14454
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Yes, context is all - at the swimming pool people will quite happily walk around in the unisex changing area in only a cossie or trunks. But imagine the protests if the changing rooms in the town centre shops became unisex!
Sorry, I will never wander hapily around unisex changing areas...
Posts: 1905 | From: the back of beyond | Registered: Jan 2009
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jigsaw:
As a student nurse in the early 1970's, I witnessed a good example of preserving modesty - A senior staff nurse and I were bed-bathing a very weak old man. She said to him: How about we wash you up as far as possible, and down as far as possible, then we'll hand you the flannel and you can wash "Possible".
This is an old line, probably common in another era. My mother trained as a nurse in the late 1940s, early 1950s in Ottawa, she repeated this line many times when she was alive.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
<tangent>
When I was bed bathing gents, I used to greet a fair few requests to "rub a bit harder, love" with the reply that I wasn't paid enough. But then small talk, undertaken whilst having someone else handle your genitals for functional reasons, is always somewhat awkward.
</tangent>
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Jigsaw
Shipmate
# 11433
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:
Originally posted by Jigsaw:
As a student nurse in the early 1970's, I witnessed a good example of preserving modesty - A senior staff nurse and I were bed-bathing a very weak old man. She said to him: How about we wash you up as far as possible, and down as far as possible, then we'll hand you the flannel and you can wash "Possible".
This is an old line, probably common in another era. My mother trained as a nurse in the late 1940s, early 1950s in Ottawa, she repeated this line many times when she was alive.
Well, it wasn't "an old line" to me at the time. I was impressed at the staff nurse's delicacy and maybe it just shows how nursing oral history can cross the pond.
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You are not alone in this.
Posts: 743 | From: Snorbens, UK | Registered: May 2006
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
It's culture of a sort - hospital culture.
Grossness / TMI Alert!
I have an enlarged prostate for which I have to have a biopsy from time to time to make sure it is still benign.
The last biopsy was a bit more invasive than usual, and upset my plumbing so that I couldn’t pee, with the result that I finished up in a hospital emergency department getting a catheter installed.
This procedure (along with the subsequent few weeks wearing the catheter) was one of the worst experiences of my life, because unfortunately my bladder tried to reject it and spasmed, so that it took a protracted and uncomfortable time to fit it.
The point is, that the whole episode, involving ministrations to The Wife’s Best Friend on the part of a number of female nurses, caused me distress, but not one single iota of embarrassement whatsoever, such is the overwhelmingly clinical ambience of a medical establishment.
For the life of me, I cannot understand how people can have sexual fantasies about nurses.
Vaguely relevant tangent:
I’m not sure whether anyone outside Australia caught the recent media furore over comments by our prime minister’s partner, known as the First Bloke.
He is a campaigner on male health issues, and in a speech to a group of men encouraging them to have prostate tests, advised that they seek out a female Asian doctor with small fingers - for which he was condemned for racism and sexism.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Vaguely relevant tangent:
I’m not sure whether anyone outside Australia caught the recent media furore over comments by our prime minister’s partner, known as the First Bloke.
He is a campaigner on male health issues, and in a speech to a group of men encouraging them to have prostate tests, advised that they seek out a female Asian doctor with small fingers - for which he was condemned for racism and sexism.
But thankfully he only apologised for it being in bad taste rather than for the overcooked accusations of racism and sexism.
I don't really have any time for Julia Gillard but I don't mind Tim Mathieson. He's a great campaigner for men's health, particularly mental health through the Men's Sheds program, which is appallingly underfunded in Australia compared to women-specific health programs.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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