feelingverylazytoday Not only would I have a problem receiving intimate care from male nurses, my mother runs a business providing personal care services, day care for elderly people and ran retirement homes for decades.
Not a single female customer, running into the thousands in all that time ever accepted care from a male carer. It continues to be one of the first things female clients and their families ask before deciding whether to chose my mum's service. She used to employ male nurses, carers and staff because she wanted to give male customers the chance to receive intimate care from a person of the same sex but for a number of reasons she no longer employs male carers.
A big part of the reason is that she has found that while male customers will accept a female carer for intimate care, female customers will not accept male carers for that part of their care, severely limiting staffing flexibility.
However, while many female customers will make an almighty fuss when confronted with a male carer, not all do. My mother has learned though that almost all of the females who remain quiet do so not because they are okay with a male carer but because for whatever reason they feel they cannot object. When asked in a way and in an atmosphere that assures these female customers that their views are important, they too will object to male carers.
What you'll find extremely frequently is that health care professionals make a lot of assumptions about what patients are okay with without ever asking females in a way that allows them to freely express their preferences without fear of repercussions or offending someone.
From hospitals to prisons to refuges, no one who is making these sweeping statements that women are okay with males in their spaces or providing intimate care has actually bothered to ask the women affected.
They often presume that the absence of complaints signifies the absence of objection.
In reality, these are situations where we feel we are at the mercy of others and the default reaction thanks to our female socialization is to not make a fuss, to not put our needs first, to not want to upset people, to not make extra work for others. None of that means we are okay.
I'm sure there are a few women who do not object because they genuinely are okay with males providing intimate care. But they are rare, so rare in fact that my mother hasn't come across any. And she made a point of personally getting to know every customer and their family (it's part of her working philosophy in providing care that meets the definition of that word).