It's not "violating privacy" that hurts people. It's telling them, later on, that what happened to them should bother them and they need to feel traumatized about it. These are the people we should be demonizing. Not the ones who touch or speak or think in a forbidden way, but the ones making previously innocent actions an outrage.
Interesting take. I know to some extent, rectal temperatures were humiliating to me in older years due to the fact it was “childish” and considered babyish. It was a very humiliating procedure, but as someone who has had lower back trauma (real physical trauma) and has had a lot of invasive procedures done, there is a marked difference between a finger trying to find out if my coccyx is dislocated and a thermometer as a child. Around 8 or 9 I started to get anxiety over the thermometer, and a lot of it was the fact that privacy was not a guarantee. I had been walked in on, and had doors left partially or completely open before, and the whole time the thermometer was stuck up my butt, if the door was actually closed, I would nervously wonder if someone would barge in. It was almost less stressful when it was left open. I also was developing, and started getting erections which would be on full display at some point. This made me feel dirty, as I felt it was an inappropriate response.
One of my last experiences with the rectal thermometer was actually a repressed memory for a long time. If you read my really old posts you’ll see that I said I had my temp taken up until age 7. This actually was a self-induced reprogramming of my mind that I did after a very traumatic experience I had at age 12. I rehearsed over and over in my mind an alternate experience where my temp was taken orally, and nothing embarrassing happened, and I had been getting it taken orally for years. The reason I did this was I had a major crush on a girl and I didn’t want my experience accidentally slipping out in conversation. In reality, though, my temp was taken rectally as it had always been up until then, and I even remember now even this wasn’t actually the last time I got it, because I had another visit to the doctor at 13 where I got it taken rectally. But at this particular visit, the doctor barged in about half way through and left the door partially open after excusing himself. I also had a raging erection which everyone saw when I wrestled my underwear up and even after because my underwear didn’t completely cover it. I was mad at the doctor so I plotted a revenge of going to the bathroom to wipe up the goop that was always left in my butt, and staying a long time to keep him waiting. That would show them it was stupid to take my temp rectally! 12 year old logic. I didn’t think things through very well, though, because when I got my underwear back up and asked to go the bathroom to wipe myself, the nurse handed me a box of kleenex and said to use those instead. I froze because I didn’t know what to do.. the door was still ajar, and there was no way I wanted to wipe my butt in front of the nurse and my mom. Before I knew what was happening, my mom had grabbed the box of kleenex and had my underwear down and had me over her knee wiping me. It was horribly humiliating, and an experience I wanted to forget and hoped everyone else would forget.
I don't blame my mom or the nurse, they were both trying to be helpful. It was just a very embarrassing and traumatic experience. Had this all happened at home, I don’t think it would’ve been that bad. Also, there are a lot of circumstances in my life that played up the humiliation. I personally don’t consider any of it abusive or intentionally degrading, just a bad chain of events. I do, however, think it was insensitive to leave the door open. The time and effort required to click the door shut takes literally one or two seconds longer than haphazardly flinging the door, which was what was done to make it stay open.