The complaints that are worth a Guardian column these days:
There unfortunately remains a false narrative that there are good reasons to be nervous about cervical screening tests. In reality, the test is not physically painful for the vast majority of women, although it can be a bit uncomfortable. However, the test can be needlessly emotionally painful, and for no good reason. This is in part because some women go through the experience of sitting with legs spread apart and “private parts” out, and then hear the nurse call for “the virgin speculum” to be used.
This is the archaic and unnecessarily sexualised term for the extra-small speculum. It should have no place being used in 2023, and it clearly creates feelings of vulnerability.
The Lady Garden Foundation, a charity that I co-founded and chair, is calling for this instrument to be renamed the “extra-small speculum” or at least its medical term, the Pederson speculum; the term virgin speculum should be removed from use by medical device advertisers and the medical profession (it is currently taught in medical schools).
Jeez. No, that really is the complaint.
Of course, there’s the bigger thing in the background:
Fundamentally, virginity is a social construct with no biological reality.
Complete bollocks. In the days before contraception, abortion and paternity testing the question “Has this woman had the sex which might lead to pregnancy” was, in fact, an important one. The future of the man’s entire line, that basic impulse of all living creatures being to have grandchildren, relied upon it to a certain extent. For exactly the same reason that within Muslim law – often enough – a woman may not remarry within 6 months of a divorce or whatever the details of that rule are. Being able to assign paternity is pretty important in a world where pater must work fingers to the bone to raise the mebbe little bastard.
To soon be renamed The Growler Society to be inclusive of trannies?
Will they promote matching 5’o’clock shadow top and bottom?
extra-small speculum
That might be considered somewhat demeaning.
My wives were virgins when I met them.
As Lord Flasheart used to say: “Woof!”
Is this her way to signal that she doesn’t have a Wizard’s Sleeve?
Ignorant, confused idiot.
There is no such instrument as a ‘Virgin Speculum’.
It’s a Vaginal Speculum, so as not to be confused with a Rectal Speculum, Nasal Speculum, Ear Speculum.
And there are various types of Vaginal Specula: the Huffman Speculum (smaller, long, thin) is used in girls not sexually active. The Peterson Speculum is used where teen girls have been sexually active. The Graves Speculum is used in adult women.
So ‘this instrument’ already has a name, it may be that nursing staff are using a colloquialism – a practice not unusual in medicine, like ‘gas-man’ instead of anæsthetist for example. In my experience vaginal specula were sometimes referred to as ‘salad servers’.
“at least its medical term, the Pederson speculum;”
I’m not allowing any dirty Pedos near my daughter’s private parts.
I’ll speculate that if men had to have their junk flopped onto an inspection device, many would shrink from it (cold day, is it?).
So let’s sympathise with the sisters – in their lives they do have to have many embarrassing inspections with legs spread.
Unpleasant cold-hearted nurses using demeaning terms for these instruments must distress some and perhaps dissuade them from life-saving checks.
The NHS is a disgrace and not all its staff are angels.
A few months ago I thought I’d have a look to see whether mass cervical screening is as bad an expenditure as mass breast screening and mass prostate screening.
I did find one clue, though nothing conclusive. The Welsh government had decided that
“the routine screening interval for anyone with a cervix aged 25 to 49 changed from 3 years to 5 years”.
If you dislike “anyone with a cervix” please express your displeasure to Sgrinio Serfigol.
Never mind the speculum. Worry about the “female” nurse with the five o’clock shadow and the unnatural grin who is holding it.
The major complaint most of the women I’ve known have is that the speculum seems to be kept in a fridge between uses.
When I thought I had a testicular torsion, the doctor was considerate enough to warm his hands before, ahem, handling the goods. It took some concentration to persuade them not to flee in terror. (I’m wincing just typing this.)
@Ed P
Apparently you have never had a prostate exam.
Never understood this argument that something can be ignored or ridiculed just because it’s a “social construct” rather than something attained through purely physical/biological investigation. Plenty of things that are meaningful and important to us are just outgrowths of our culture and society rather than compilations of bare facts subject to scientific falsification – including pretty much anything argued in a newspaper opinion column.
Medical ethics is a social construct. Should we scrap that idea?
Medical ethics is a social construct. Should we scrap that idea?
I’ve never seen a “medical ethicist” who wasn’t some kind of murder-obsessed lunatic.
In the UK the majority of themedical profession is female, so anyone covertly accusing it of misogyny needs to viewed with suspicicion. Anyone who says there is no biological reality to virginity is simply a liar.
Oh well, it’s the Guardian – that explains it.
Surely needing the virgin speculum should be a point of pride. Something to show off to the other ladies at coffee morning about.
Presumably her husband is rather happy about it even if she is not.
If it was for dealing with men’s tackle it’s a toss up whether calling it a “virgin speculum” or an “ultra small speculum” would cause least distress.
If you’re having the male equivalent of a speculum shoved up your japseye you really, really want it to be ultra-small.
Bit late to this one, but would she really prefer to be offered the ‘Wizard’s sleeve’ speculum?