Posted by Andrew on 7/1/2011, 1:39 pm, in reply to "A query & a request"
Message modified by board administrator 7/1/2011, 1:42 pm

Hi Lusy and others I explain it like this. I categorise people roughly into severe, moderate and mild cases. Note this is in terms of where they can go, NOT in terms of its effect on their self-esteem etc. Severe cases can go only at home, and even then can be inhibited by the presence of others. I repeat: they cannot use public toilets and normally cannot manage others' houses, except perhaps for the house of one friend or a family member. Moderate cases can go in domestic situations most of the time, but struggle in public cubicles. Mild cases can go in public cubicles most of the time, but struggle to use urinals. From this I hope it is obvious that women can fall only into the moderate and severe categories. That suggests that there would be fewer women, because you would not have the equivalent of the mild male cases. Having said that, it is much more common for womens' cubicles to have queues compared to male cubicles; such queues being an added pressure and a common trigger for inhibition. So that would increase the number of women by an unknown amount. Two things fall out of this. 1. For a mild male case to say that women have it easier because they can use cubicles may be OK from his point of view, but try telling that to a moderate male case, who struggles to use a cubicle. 2. As you all know, the impact of this condition is twofold: the physical discomfort when not able to relieve oneself, and the mental anguish that follows from this and burdens you 24/7. This mental anguish is the same whatever category you are in and whatever gender you are. So thank you Lusy for raising this point. cheers Andrew

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