Biggest change to gyn exams over the years

To women who've had many gyn exams over the years... what do you think has been the biggest change that you've seen? This could be how a doctor approaches the exam, to what they are/aren't checking for, to their mannerisms, to their equipment, etc.

From my clinical experience and in talking to others, exams for girls are much less humiliating today than even 15 years ago and especially compared to 50s, 60s, and 70s. There are exceptions still but this is in general terms.

Good question, and not a topic that has been discussed before. my guess would be less intrusive exams where the females partner is more welcomed into the exam room. I'd guess that years ago, it was a strictly female thing where men were not even allowed in the delivery room let alone able to go with for an annual exam, but now things have been loosened and the men probably expected to be in the delivery room and allowed in for exams if they want

I was present at the birth of my daughters, one in the 1970's one in the 80's, also present at an examination of my then wife for birth control in the mid 1970's. that was forty years ago here in the UK.

There was no resistance from the medical establishment to my presence at any time.

I can't really comment on gyn exams in general as in the UK you would only have one if reffered etc, but as far as GP exams go, from the age of 15 through to 20 I would have an annual breast and internal exam and smear test, now at age 45 I get a just a smear every three years, and having teenage daughters both on the pill they will get nothing until called for a smear at age 25, so I think things have massively chnaged

Had the same experience was not in delivery in the 60s but was in the 70s. As far as exams was in for several in the 60s and 70s without resistance from the dr

Dr bob

My wife says that the third person normally the nurse is a big change. used to be just her and the male doctor i was not allowed. Another was state if undress or rather the lack of it, as she was not required to be completely undressed for the doctor and as there was lots of dresses in those days a lot of times she would remove her panties when he would ask. also the position of the stirrups is different today. they used to have either real high, about at the doctors shoulders as he was standing and out real wide. or they would be in place right at the base of the table and she would have to scoot down to over the end, and he would have her let her knees fall out all the way to the side so they where almost flat, then he would drop a center section out of the table to access her vagina.

I would think the biggest change may be the new gyn exam "chairs" and the plastic speculums with a built in light.

The bigggest change between my early exam had been the gyn chair. Earlier i felt more spread and expsode there. Also i had been undress complete in the mid 80's. And talk with the doctor about my intim things sitting naked at his desk before the exam start.

When did it change from being completely undressed? How is it now - undressed from waist down?

It changed as the old doctor end his work at the Office and a new doctor start. That had been 1995. From this time i had to undress from waist down.

Having been married for 40 years now I have seen quite closely how women's examinations have changed. While only having attended a few myself, my wife has always been forthcoming in her descriptions. The first time was immediately prior to our wedding, the 'pre-wedding exam' when it was just her and her male GP and she got the full works, completely naked and just one to one. He stayed in the room the whole time while she undressed, actually instructing her what to remove at each stage. This was considered quite normal I believe. After a few years we moved house and both became patients of the same doctor. I was fortunately able to be present at her first ante natal exam where she was able to undress completely behind a curtain after which the doctor then went in to complete the procedure.The last occasion, ten years ago, about the time of her change, I accompanied her to our GP as her periods had become irregular. The doctor had a small ante room containing the exam couch and this was where she undressed and even though I was present he insisted on a nurse attending as a chaperone. She was offered a blanket to cover her lower half but as it looked used declined. After the very discreet examination, both nurse and doctor left while she dressed.

Looking back it seems amazing that doctors got away with as much as they did compared to today but I guess people are questioning all forms of authority in this age compared to the 70's and 80's.

I was with my wife for an exam on the early seventies and got no resistance at all from the dr or nurse.

My mother and even my grand mother told me that they just rolled their stockings down to the ankles and stuck their high heels in the stirrups. Even have one doctor here that lets me keep them on like Lynn said

Dr62bob, I went to my wife's prenatal visits, including the full exam, in the mid-90s with no problems either.

Sorry, Bob, I missed the full context of your reply, so my post didn't really add much to the discussion--sorry I only have later, rather than earlier, data points.

The only real difference I've noticed was the presence of the nurse in the room. Back in the early 80s it was just the doctor and me. Sometime in the 90s the chaperonage started to become more regular.

Looking back it seems amazing that doctors got away with as much as they did compared to today but I guess people are questioning all forms of authority in this age compared to the 70's and 80's.

From what I've read in so many posts and from what I make of attitudes in general (just by living through those times), I wouldn't say that people are questioning authority as much as certain individuals at some point started to insist on a right to privacy and more especially to prudery in so many spheres of life. They apparently felt that the changes that had happened during the 60's-80's, when so many people were indeed questioning authority on a very wide scale, had gone too far. For them there was just too much nudity, sex, wild abandon and licentiousness going on. There has been tremendous conservative and religious push-back to the attitudes of the 60's-80's.

Perhaps you're confusing the mentality of getting rich quick and therefore abandoning so many moral and (not to forget) very legal principles, with a questioning of authority. That's not really questioning, but rather flouting and ignoring authority for personal gain. And on that count, looked at in that way, there is indeed a huge difference between those decades and now. In this present age, people don't question authority to make things better and improve the common good, they ignore it for love of wealth and money.

More gynecologists who are women. Though I've seen posts from women who appear the same age or older who have never had a man for a gynecologist. I've always had men for gynecologists until I was in my 30s. When I made appointments, I was never asked if I preferred to see a woman.

I've seen videos of doctors using plastic speculums and women in leg holders. I've always had metal used and stirrups. It doesn't seem like the plastic speculum would be as study or glide in me as smoothly since I don't lubricate like I used to. I wouldn't mind the leg holders.

The biggest change is fairly recent and that is the change in guidelines and patients being empowered and knowing what is and isn't needed.

My days in family practice are many many years in the past and pap and pelvic exams were annual and given out like candy.

Today if no issues, not sexually active and under 21 you do not need a pap smear and pelvic exam is debatable.

The HPV vaccine has been so successful that smears can also be safely less frequent than in the past.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMF3Gj228/

This lady shows what it was like in the past to now perfectly in one short clip.

@Countrydr Indeed. I heard of teen girls being made to take pelvic exams (even if not sexually active), pelvic exams + smear being enforced for any prescription of contraceptive pills. None of that was medically indicated, and one can wonder about the motives of the physicians (charging more? control? enjoyment?).

I would say most people go into medicine as they care and interested in the science; most with bad intentions wouldn't make it through.

I don't think past practice was based on enjoyment or control and simply going along with what was accepted practice and blanks in knowledge. When you have seen patients decades ago dying from cervical Ca etc you really don't want that for anyone really unpleasant way to go out.

I am not a woman, but I think that one of the biggest change in gynecology was given by the technology of the transvaginal ultrasound in the 1980 years. The picture is much better than with a belly transducer, and even those were not available in the 1960ies.

The only real difference I've noticed was the presence of the nurse in the room. Back in the early 80s it was just the doctor and me. Sometime in the 90s the chaperonage started to become more regular.

I suspect that became pretty standard with the advent of so many malpractice and sexual harassmen lawsuits in the 80s and 90s. Every little word or action now can offend someone or be misconstrued as assault. So the chaperone is there as a witness for the doctor as much as an advocate for the patient.

I remember thumbing through the chapter concerning gynecology in a medical text in a public library back in the 80s. (This is all we had before the internet.) There were pictures of “proper draping” of a female patient for a pelvic examination. Both of her legs were covered in sheets, as was her abdomen. Just the vulva was uncovered. I can't imagine a nurse wrapping a woman up like that for a pap smear today.

@agracier and @KC_Patient I’ve no doubt you’re correct that some of the lawsuits are bogus and some of this is creeping prudery. keep in mind though that the tone of your responses can be difficult for those who actually have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of doctors - and there are a lot of us here. Yes it’s rare - but so are people with a medical fetish and based on the back stories I’ve seen they go hand-in-hand for many people who have them. I was sexually abused by a doctor and no, I didn’t sue. someone Extremely close to me used to handle malpractice claims for a large insurance company and doctor on patient sexual abuse is real and happened/still happens.

I remember thumbing through the chapter concerning gynecology in a medical text in a public library back in the 80s. (This is all we had before the internet.) There were pictures of “proper draping” of a female patient for a pelvic examination. Both of her legs were covered in sheets, as was her abdomen. Just the vulva was uncovered. I can't imagine a nurse wrapping a woman up like that for a pap smear today.

I've bought a lot of old medical textbooks over the past years. These were mostly French texts published between the world wars and a fair amount of afterwards and some late 19th century as well.

In any case, most of the imagery, both line drawings and photos were of naked subjects. That was the main reason why I bought the books in the first place.

I've posted a number of such images in my albums here.

It would interesting to know the publishing date and country for the book you refer to. And are you certain the draping was done for a routine pelvic exam or was it for a surgical procedure? Because when it came to surgical procedures, in the books I have, patients are also draped for just about all surgical procedures.

When I talk about creeping prudery, this is naturally meant to reflect the broad evolution going on over years with large percentages of population. This is on the sociological level I suppose. I doubt that anyone could really refute the observation that society has become more (morally) prudish and disapproving when compared to the decades of the 60-80s.

And with the war now going on, that is expected to only intensify, we will be going back to what one might call WWII and Great Depression attitudes towards life and pleasure. Namely that everything is so serious and our striving for individual pleasure insignificant in light of the events taking place. That there is no place for frivolity.

In times of economic uncertainty and war, society reverts back to a conservative default. And this default includes dour and disapproving attitudes to sex, nudity and sexual pleasure for its own sake.

Add to this evolution the great mixing of peoples and cultures we are now experiencing and piled on top of everything else, society will end up catering to the lowest common denominator and the practices that offend the least number of cultural traditions: namely becoming more and more prudish over the years.

@Agracier I totally understand what you're saying. What I struggle with is the online culture the younger generations are developing is anything but prudish. Twenty-somethings (at least in the US) have no problem sharing images of themselves online showing whatever they want. The proliferation of self-publishing pornography like OnlyFans and the like, the fact that even mainstream social media like Twitter allows for the posting of nudes, I don't see this as widespread creeping prudery. Could it be more an increasing association of nudity with sexuality unlike the, let's call it more ‘wholesome’ attitude to nudity of the 60's/70's?

I am not a woman, but I think that one of the biggest change in gynecology was given by the technology of the transvaginal ultrasound in the 1980 years. The picture is much better than with a belly transducer, and even those were not available in the 1960ies.

I would have gladly had transvaginal ultrasounds than to have had to drink all of that water. I may have been drinking too much. My appointments never seemed to start on time.

A couple of times I couldn't take it anymore and went to the restroom and they called me a few minutes later. I ended up wasting their time.

@Agracier I totally understand what you're saying. What I struggle with is the online culture the younger generations are developing is anything but prudish. Twenty-somethings (at least in the US) have no problem sharing images of themselves online showing whatever they want. The proliferation of self-publishing pornography like OnlyFans and the like, the fact that even mainstream social media like Twitter allows for the posting of nudes, I don't see this as widespread creeping prudery. Could it be more an increasing association of nudity with sexuality unlike the, let's call it more ‘wholesome’ attitude to nudity of the 60's/70's?

I would say that even on-line social media is becoming more prudish. Tumblr and Facebook are good examples of this. FB is notoriously prudish and will (temporarily) ban someone for even innocent depictions of nudity in Great Art or cartoons, book covers etc. I've experienced this often enough. Just the word ‘Porn’ in a image can get one banned. And Tumblr underwent a whole metamorphosis some years back with more or less the same policies as on FB. I also read here on Zity about the condition/disappearance of ASSTR (?) the sexual story repository going blank.

And these are just a few instances. It is no secret that many influence groups in society are striving to ban all forms of nudity/eroticism/pornography on-line. All in line with the old fashioned and tried and tested script of moaning and groaning about society going to Hell in a Handbasket and how things were so much better in previous times before gays dared to show themselves in public, married or even (gasp) adopted and raised kids! Or that people could more or less effectively change their outward appearance to the gender of their choice. The howls of rage this causes in many circles is bewildering, especially the ridiculous bathroom for trans people legislation or the banning of what are considered to be sexually improper books in libraries.

Twitter is more or less holding steady and bucking the trends, but I wouldn't count on it holding out to pressure.

Things like OnlyFans is a platform for generating money for the participants, I would call it a welcome way of ‘democratizing’ income streams for the amateurs. The same with webcam sites like Chaturbate. The income needn't all go to corporate entities.

And in book publishing all over, erotic books are becoming more and more scarce, even in secondhand bookshops. Back in the 1990s virtually all secondhand bookstores had sections with sex book, mags and comics for sale, even stores run by Muslim owners. As of present I know of just two such stores left in a world capital like Brussels. And only a few left in Paris. Stores selling newspapers and mags also had storefront displays showing erotic comics and mags. Then it evolved to wrapped in plastic items and now such stores sell none any more. Not considered appropriate by society anymore.

I could probably come up with more examples given time and the inclination. These are just those off the top of my head.

Perhaps the attitudes towards nudity in the 60s-70s were more wholesome or perhaps people were intrigued and amused by the relaxation of social mores from the World War era standards. Lack of frivolity and lack of sexual fun can become boring and enervating after a time. Especially when life was getting better after a time of wartime shortages and deprivations and limitations. The 60s-80s were a time for fun for a change. Now we are entering a period of things being very serious in almost all aspects of life. War, economic distress, dire ecological predictions, a great mixing of peoples and cultures, rapid population growth and the resulting shortages of just about everything. And everything changing so utterly fast.

Undoubtedly things will change again after this cycle of uncertainties and great changes ends, but it won't be for us.