MEDICALLY-INDUCED EXPOSITION?

In my life I've been subjected to a myriad of physical problems related to my lower left quadrant. I mentioned this in the last blog entry, and even showed one of the surgery scars from a hernia operation a couple of decades ago. It seemed like, and still does, my lower left abdomen and groin receive more than their fair share of medical attention.
Two of my six lifetime hernia operations (three of them in toddlerhood) have been on the lower left. I have developed a varicocele, essentially a varicose vein, in my left testicle, and the referral pain is up into the groin causing a frequent "bruised sensation".

In the area of the second hernia incision, the one I showed the scar for last entry, there's a patch of numbness surrounded by that bruised feeling. And a mobile "pinprick" of actual pain which until recently went undiagnosed.

So, yeah. For years I've had doctors and nurses and technicians poking and prodding and generally exposing my cock and balls, and doing all sorts of medical things to me. It's given me a mild medical fetish interest as a masturbatory fantasy, but in real life getting an erection in that sort of situation is among the furthest things in my mind. Doesn't mean it hasn't, and won't again, but it's not the first thing on my mind.

But what it has done is to give me a more casual attitude about being naked around doctors and other practitioners. (As I regain some physical fitness it will undoubtedly be less of a gross-out for them, he noted with self-deprecating humor.) It just seems kind of absurd to be any kind of modest when the ultrasound technician, for example, is running their device all around your crotch and balls. I've had this done three times, and the first involved the placement of a large set of towels on my penis (to hold it up and out of the way?). The second was a flimsy paper covering that was more problematic for the technician than warranted. So the third time (in which they found the varicocele, yay!) I just lay there holding my dick to the side while the tech worked. (Male tech, BTW)

It occurs to me the protecting my modesty might be a ruse for protecting the technician's sensibility. Eh, fuck 'em. If I have to do the procedure I expect THEM to be professional about the human body.

Another procedure which involves complete exposure is scoping. When the doctor runs a catheter up through your penis to examine your insides. I've had this done several times and there really is no way to avoid the exposure. You lay on the table and the doctor takes your cock and rams the scoping equipment up as far as he/she can. At least that's how it feels.

(Personally I've always regarded the penis to be a one-way organ, so scoping is a bit of an eye-opener in several ways.)

The first time I had it done was a couple of decades ago when I was having trouble with my left kidney (again, left side). Sharp pains indicated there was a potential problem, and this was discovered to be a constriction of the ureter - the tube between the kidney and the bladder - which resulted from scar tissue from a kidney operation I had as a toddler. (I was a medically active kid.)

The first time I was scoped, consciously at least, was in the urologist's office to remove a stent that had been put in to open the scar tissue up and allow urine to flow from the kidney to the bladder. Obviously I'd been scoped to put it in, but was under anesthesia at the time. I was instructed to take off my clothes from the waist down and lay on my back on the table, and then covered by a sheet of medical paper - the three by three "covering" typically used for this sort of thing.

Not the usual exam...

And rather absurdly the doctor then ripped a hole in the paper and pulled my penis up through the opening to perform the procedure. At the time I thought this was particularly dumb. Rather than "protecting my modesty" it kind of did the opposite and seemed to be more invasive than if I hadn't been covered. I mentioned it to the doctor, who by then had seen my cock three times (examination, procedure and now stent removal), and he laughed, agreeing. He stopped what he was doing, balled up the paper and tossed it away.

(For a variety of reasons the first procedure didn't work and we repeated the entire thing a couple of months later, and no paper was mentioned, used or even produced.)

Jump forward a couple of decades and - I mentioned this in the deleted blog's pages - I found myself once again on a urologist's table awaiting a scoping. The nurse, who had seen hundreds of cocks working for this doctor, started to cover me with paper. I laughed, explained I thought it was pretty dumb to try to protect my modesty under the circumstances. The doctor would only move the paper away when he came into the exam room anyway. She agreed, but said some guys were freaked out by being exposed - what part of "urologist" didn't you understand? - and she did it out of habit. She left the paper covering my thighs but not the genitals.

All of which leaves me with a profound sense of "what the hell, why not?" when it comes to nudity. I'm naked with my best friend - well, obviously my wife, but my male best friend as well - whenever possible. I've been naked in hot tubs with other friends, and am never offended or even shocked with other people who are or like to be naked. (I'm not a nudist, just uninhibited I guess.) And interestingly enough, it helps with self-esteem. I mentioned the various scarring on my torso from the hernia operations as well as the original kidney surgery. Makes for a good conversation piece and generally relaxes people into realizing that simple nudity doesn't equate to sex.

I've photographed several of my friends nude and it, frankly, helped our friendship to be more open and intimate. The people I can talk to most freely, I think, are those whom I feel comfortable enough to be or see naked. I think it's a barriers thing, but psychologists are probably better at explaining.

So in a way the medical stuff has informed my attitude towards the human body. Very few of them are perfect, and since we all have one it just seems pretty damned stupid at times to be too concerned about other people seeing it*.

(* and since we're in the society we're in and things often have to be clarified for the more dim, reactionary members of our culture: I am strongly against pedophilia and any kind of victimization. Kids should be raised with a healthy understanding of their bodies, but this comes from the parents not oily uncle George. Likewise no one should be compelled to see or experience another person's body outside of their comfort zone. Clear? The old "mutually consenting adults" thingy? Got it? Good.)