Conservative Colorado

Moving to Colorado has been awesome, we absolutely love it here, but I do have one major beef with you, Colorado.

You are far too conservative in dress, and I refuse to change to suit that for you.

Looking around at a grocery store, you’ll see that about ninety percent of people in our vicinity live in jogging pants.  Not only that, but it’s pretty apparent that most of these people are not coming from or going to a gym.  I say this not because of how they look, but more because of all the things I hear them say.

“Oh!  I can’t wait to get XYZ brand of jogging pants!  They are so comfortable to lay around in!”

Hmm.  Master Pravus and me moved from Boston, where people tend to dress up for everything.  Here you see most in very, very relaxed wear.  Personally, I don’t mind this.  Whatever someone wants to wear is fine with me, as long as they don’t heckle me for wearing mini skirts.  Hell, heckle away, because I refuse to stop!

I’m sure you’re wondering where I’m going with this, and don’t worry – I do have a point.  What does bother me about Colorado’s conservativeness is the doctor visits.  The first time I saw a doctor in Colorado, it was at Urgent Care, because we had not gotten a primary care physician yet.  This was back when we first moved here, and I actually was in pajamas, but only because I was literally too sick to put on any clothes and Master Pravus had to help me walk to the car.  At the time, I had an ovarian cyst rupture, and I needed to see a doctor so I could get some pain medicine.  There’s really nothing else to be done for that.

What it came down to is that I needed a pelvic exam, and an ultrasound.  I got there, and they re-explained that this is what they were going to do and before anything happened – the doctor said:

“I’ll be right back, I have to get a nurse.”

Figuring that the nurse was going to help with one of the procedures, I didn’t say anything, and I just laid there on the table.  Turns out that the only reason the nurse was there was so that the doctor would have someone there to back him up in the case that I wanted to accuse him of sexual assault.  Huh?  Not only that, but he made me do my own ultrasound, basically.  He was too scared to insert the device inside me, so he had me do it and tried to coach me into putting it in the right places.  Honestly?  That struck me as very uncool.  I was already in a lot of pain and had no real clue what they wanted me to do with the thing.  I could barely walk, and had to try to figure out how to give myself an internal ultrasound!  Insane, in my opinion.

While he was doing this to me, he explained that he doesn’t touch the female patients internally in case someone wanted to sue him.

Excuse me?  You’re a doctor.  I’m paying you a lot more than I should be anyway, and you can’t even administer a test?  I didn’t argue, I just wanted to get out as soon as I could and go home to lay down.  But it irked me a bit.  And it has continued to irk me ever since, when I go to a doctor.

Back in New England, they ask you if you’d feel more comfortable with a nurse in the room to supervise before they go and do it.  And they also administer their own tests, without trying to teach you how to do it yourself.  Honestly?  I think that’s a better system.  At least it doesn’t make me, the patient, feel as though I’m not to be trusted.

Things like this kept happening, even just at physicals.  I figured it was just a local thing, and I’ve tried not to take it personally (even if I still find it to be wildly obnoxious).

The other day I went to the dentist and I wore this outfit:

As you can see, I had some cleavage, and my skirt went to about mid-thigh.  Nothing too crazy.  Truthfully, yes, I do tend to cover up just a little bit more when I go to the doctor or dentist.  A t-shirt or something, but I see no reason to cover up much more of my legs than that.  I’m a lady!  Why cover my pretty legs?  And anyway, my butt was definitely covered as were my tits, though I will totally admit to cleavage.  It was ninety-two degrees outside though, and I had to walk about a mile to get to the dentist.  True, a mile isn’t so long, but as I said it was really hot, and I saw no reason to kill myself in the heat in long pants or a t-shirt.

I showed up to the dentist and they took me as per usual.  I was just getting a cleaning, so I wasn’t at all worried.  I got to the chair, said Hello to the dentist, and then the dental assistant started polishing my teeth.  OK, so far so good.  Then, the hygenist got up to go do something else, and right before she left she covered me up in a big, fuzzy blanket.  As I said, it was ninety-two degrees outside, so I knew there had to be a reason why she was doing this.  I figured if she was going to try to humiliate me somehow, then I’d do the same back, though I do love both this dentist and the hygienist.  And, I was polite.

“I’m just going to cover you up in this blanket”  Says the hygienist.

“Why?”  says I.

“Well, the doctor is going to make me anyway, so I may as well.”

“Yeah, but it’s ninety two out.  I’ll wear a blanket if you want, but I just was wondering the purpose.  It’s only a cleaning, right?”

“Well, whenever a woman comes in with a short skirt, we just cover them up in this blanket.”

“Why?” (I am so very full of whys!)

“Well, even though we have the camera up there, it just makes the doctor feel better about not getting into trouble with the female clients.”

“Ah, well, I won’t complain about a nice fuzzy blanket, I was just curious.”

She covered me and left the room.

I know that I have a tendency to show leg, and some cleavage in general when we’re in public, but no one has ever covered me up like that before.  True, this is the doctor’s hang up, and not mine – but it still felt kind of icky.  Not as icky as some of my other encounters, but really.  Icky.

If this had been anyone else, I don’t think I’d have been as offended as I felt at the time.  Hell, while I was in the dental chair for two hours last week, he went on and on about how he just found out that a friend of his is an “exotic dancer” and how there’s just always “one in every bunch”.  At that point, I had several metal things and two hands in my mouth working away at my tooth, so I didn’t respond, but even if I did, I wouldn’t have told him what I do for a living.  That’d probably freak him out like mad.

The truth is, I don’t bring up sex or sex talk with anyone I don’t know very, very well, and even then there’s a good chance I still won’t talk about it.  So when people pull shit like covering me up with a blanket, or insisting a nurse be in there to protect them, then yes.  It does get on my nerves.

Maybe I show some cleavage and a bit of leg, but it’s not like you can ever see my ass or like I’m wearing a belly shirt.  I feel like no matter what, I should be treated with respect and dignity, and forcing me to cover up honestly just feels like another form of slut shaming.

Maybe you’re thinking “Oh, but by wearing a short skirt, you were asking for it.”

Was I?

Does the fact that I wore a skirt which didn’t quite reach my knees, but which covered my ass really make me that much of a liability?  Sorry, but I have to disagree with you.  I’ve never put the moves on any doctor, and if you read my first example you’ll know that you don’t always have to have short clothes on to constitute being targeted as a potential problem.  I was wearing pajamas.  Since when is there a dress code to get medical care anyway?

Sorry, Colorado, much though I love you in general, I don’t think you and me are ever going to see eye to eye on this matter.  No one should ever be made to feel bad about the clothes they are wearing, least of all when they are paying for a service.

Oh, and my exam went very well if you want to know.  One medium sized cavity, which the dentist says he’s going to fix up the same day I go to have my crown cemented.  Party on.