The Darkest Depths of Man

I had to go in to see a doctor for a flexible sigmoidoscopy. For those of you who don’t know what that means, a doctor shoves a tube up your butt and takes a sightseeing tour of your colon.  This probably qualifies as "more about me than you ever wanted to know," but if not, read on.

The doctor who performed this thrilling task was a strikingly beautiful young woman…which made me even more uncomfortable than the exam itself. I would have preferred if my doctor was a man…or if  she looked like the rectum she was examining.

Here’s my question to you: what difference did it make? I’m a very happily married man and would never stray… so I’m definitely not on the make (and even if I was, the offices of a colon & rectum specialist isn’t really the hottest pick-up spot in town. "Hey, baby, now that you’ve seen my rectum, want to go out some time?" or "This has been fun. What do you say you pull that garden hose out of my butt and lets go to dinner?").  So why was I more uncomfortable with an attractive woman doing the exam
than I would have been with a man or an atrociously ugly woman?

(And why do I have a feeling of deja vu with this post? Have I asked this question before? Or is this a question my bowel-movement obsessed brother has asked on his blog or his old newspaper column?)

6 thoughts on “The Darkest Depths of Man”

  1. I’m generally a little put off anytime somebody the docs are poking around the ol’ hiney hole, be they a man or a woman, regardless of looks. However, when I was having the boys up front ultrasounded a couple of years ago, I wasn’t too upset that the technician was an attractive woman.
    I’m also quite sure that she, and all other women, find gel-slathered testicles quite the turn on. Ladies?
    This might be too much information as well, but several years ago when I had the medical equivalent of a drain snake up the bottom, I awoke towards the end of the procedure and groggily asked the doctor how it had gone.
    He said, “It went well. Would have been better if you had stopped talking throughout the whole thing.”
    I dread to think of what I might have said. I hope it wasn’t anything that included phrases like “I like it like that” or “Ooh, you’re a big one aren’t you?”
    OK, yeah, that was probably too much information.
    Moving right along.

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  2. Lee,
    If someone is going to do something like that to me, it BETTER be an attractive woman.
    I may need to give you a call to get your doctor’s name in the near future.
    The Other Lee

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  3. So why was I more uncomfortable with an attractive woman doing the exam than I would have been with a man or an atrociously ugly woman?

    Because the primitive parts of your brain have programmed by evolution to want you to appear manly and virile in front of any (no matter how remotely) prospective breeding partner, and there is NOTHING less manly and virile then lying there on your side with a plumber’s snake up your butt. (I was lucky. The anesthesiologist over-medicated me and I was out cold for the entire procedure.)

    On the other hand, a gay actor I know rather enjoys his regular colonoscopies and has been known to ask the docs if they can use something larger next time…

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  4. After my last doctor (who got very upset I didn’t have chronic heartburn after the Prilosec rep paid him a visit), I switched to a female doctor, one who hates meds.
    That said, there are a couple of things I’ve found I’m actually uncomfortable talking about to her. Call me old fashioned, but one of those is my ass, and even in the most clinical of terms, I have a hard time asking her to basically do anything back there.

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  5. Dear Lee,
    Re: your sigmoidoscopy.
    Once I turned 40, I began undergoing the rite of male passage known as the prostate exam. A couple of years ago I was having my annual checkup when my physician mentioned that he had a med student shadowing him for the day and could she sit in on my exam. So she hung around while he checked my ears, nose, throat, heart etc. Then it was time to “lie on my side and cough.” He asked if she could observe. I figured what the hell, why not? Then he asked if she could try the procedure. I should mention here that she was a very cute, slim, young Oriental girl. So I said okay. And I must say, there was a different aspect to it completely than when he did it. For one thing, she had much smaller fingers. But also, she was way better looking than he (didn’t have the mustache or anything) and also, this is an area my wife prefers not to explore. If it is possible to feel aroused while someone is pressing down on your prostate and you are trying not to stain your underwear, I think I might have managed it. A little.
    Talk about oversharing….

    Reply

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