Experience # 2: The rectoscopy

Sorry if you find this unpleasant, but I want to say this: I have had a proctoscopy or two (I still like to keep it casual). In case you don’t know what it is exactly:

"Proctoscopy is a common medical procedure in which an instrument called a proctoscope (also known as a rectoscope) is used to examine the anal cavity, rectum or sigmoid colon. A proctoscope is a short (10in or 25 cm long), straight, rigid, hollow metal tube, and usually has a small light bulb mounted at the end. During proctoscopy, the proctoscope is lubricated and inserted into the rectum, and then the obturator is removed, allowing an unobstructed view of the interior of the rectal cavity. This procedure is normally done to…"

Why do they call 10in (or 25 cm) “short”?… I know colonospy tubes and similar instruments are much longer, but they are narrow and flexible, not “straight and rigid and hollow (... so I am being penetrated by it but it has nothing inside?) and metal (have this people heard about life-imitating latex or silicon?; this whole procedure could be a lot nicer!)”.

Proctoscopies are not nice… kind of like root canal work or penis swabs… not that terrible, objectively and physically and generally speaking, but so very damaging psychologically… after my last one I felt I had to go into the Bhs restaurant and have a cream tea... in my mind it was the only thing that seemed have to have the potential to sedate me.

But for me the worst thing is not that during the whole process I am terrified of not being squeaky clean in there (I am very rectum-proud), but rather that terrible predicament you find yourself in once it is almost all over and, having the doctors initially put a truckload of KY into that moist but not slippery cavity, you are given one, I repeat one, wafer-thin Kleenex to clean all the allegedly excess lubricant.

I don’t know… maybe I am just missing the point… Maybe the clinic has a policy of leaving you all lubricated for whatever may happen later: why take it off if you’re going to put it on/in again. Still, it’s a very odd situatior; for starters, you don’t want to put the wipe to proper use (or indeed ask for more paper with that very target in mind) in front of the customary doctor and nurse, who are normally still there, talking to you and writing things and maybe feeling like shit. After what’s just happened, I always feel that what little dignity I have left I would like to keep; to me, that means no proper wiping in front of sentient beings… and yet again the fact is: there’s always ten times more KY than the one Kleenex could ever absorb. So what do you do?: you reluctantly use what you are reluctantly given (no need to be impolite either), very casually of course, like you don’t need to, with head well high, and after the one swift and almost accidental swipe you use all your arm strength to bomb-drop some bin. And then you fly, fly, fly --literally, silkily, soothingly, effortlessly and, after the first step, incontrolably-- lubricated to death, to the nearest toilet with adequate paper supplies and you clean yourself like god intended: strenuously and alone.

But it's impossible to it take all away... And so for the rest of the day you feel kind of diluted, kind of like a runny sauce; kind of slippery and kind of whorish; kind of shit and kind of oily. Kind of like a KY-filled Kinder Surprise. Hello kiddies!

Then there is the position you have to be in for this sort of anal procedures. I am just going to say it: the fetal position. I find the fetal position is inherently humiliating… I guess is because I am not a fetus anymore? I am 31 for god’s sake. And I love how they always prepare you at least 10 minutes before the doctor arrives by telling you to undress and lay on some extremely narrow and feeble-looking bed in the fetal position... I think: couldn’t we do it once the doc arrives and there is a point to it? I mean, he's hardly going to cross the door, run my (back)side and impale me, is he? He'll take some time, I'm sure... Enough for me to undress and get into the fetal position? You bet!

I don't want to be naked and in the fetal position whilst alone; it's just not something one does on one's own... Surely so much efficiency is not required... But, like at the dentist, I do not contradict a nurse who could grass me up to a doctor as a difficult patient, a doctor who will later be yielding a rectoscope. No. In my proctoscopy appointments I always notice I am at my most meek, a sort of pathetic-meek, wronged-woman-type meek… And so, if in preparation for the doctor, the nurse asked me to quietly dance some flamenco while in the fetal position, I would at least try.

Being gay is possibly the final point of contention… As the rectoscope is pushed up my rectum, logically, in the usual non-sexy medical way, I feel anxious that my straight doctor and nurse (who, not being headless, know I am gay) could think that I may be enjoying the whole thing… you know… because I am gay, therefore I must enjoy having a long, hard and wide thing in my rectum (but remember: it's hollow!), a thing which, it is worth noting, is twisted and pulled backwards and forwards (once it's in, they say it’s just backwards, not forwards, and therefore make you feel like you are having some sort of a rectum hallucination). Or maybe it's quite the opposite, and on the same logical lines and judging from my distorted face (due to the procedure in hand), they think I'm not enjoying it when I should... What a pathetic excuse for a gay guy you are… Pull yourself together and enjoy… I am doing my best here, you know! Maybe that’s it: I am supposed to enjoy the rapeoscopy.

But the truth is that above all I feel embarrassed to be involved in the cliché: gay and with a thing up his arse. It makes me feel like I deserve it. This is what happens when you get the retrovirus… other people may need this procedure, but really you need it because of this, you filthy retro carrier… I deserve being 31 and in the fetal position, naked in the feeble and narrow bed, listening to all footsteps and voices near the door (like there’s anything else to do, apart from adjusting the angle of your fetal position, in the very vain hope that you may look good in it), hoping that it’s your doctor already and praying not for a worldwide shortage of KY (the KY really helps) but for an orgy of Kleenex for after, for when it's all over.