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8
hospital, insisting that "Dr. Moser takes care of weird
people." Finally, his daughter cajoled him into going,
and I was able to take good care of him. Later, while he
was recovering, he admitted to me that he felt foolish.
"I thought you were such a bad doctor that people like
that were the only patients you could get," he confessed.
"Now I know that you're such a good doctor you'll take
care of whoever needs you."
On a similar note, I've been surprised, and sometimes
a little dismayed, at the number of members of the kink
community who prejudge their physicians because of
sex, religious affiliation, or the physician's own lifestyle
choices.
This, then, is the goal of Health Care Without Shame.
I hope that it will be read by two types of people ­ by
people who want help in finding and/or opening up to
professionals who will provide them with competent and
nonjudgmental health care, and by those professionals
who want to know more about sexual minorities so that
they can render more effective care. I'd like to see us all
on the same side, working together toward a mutual goal
of better health care for everyone.
Unfortunately, most professionals have had little
or no training in human sexuality. They may never have
knowingly met anyone kinky. Unless they take the
initiative to seek out information on their own, they have
been taught very little about alternative sexualities. They
often do not understand the medical problems related
to the practice of various sexual behaviors, nor the issues
inherent in various sexual lifestyles. Most have read few
if any of the excellent books written by and for members
of sexual minorities.