HUMAN CONDITIONS

Jean Roberta C 2000

In the Bible, God covers Job's skin with boils as a means of testing his faith. In 1350, when Bubonic Plague wiped out half the population of Europe, the disease was generally seen as a sign of God's wrath. In the French novel, La Dame aux Camellias (and the opera, La Traviata, based on the same story), a prostitute of the 1830s is reformed by the love of a good man, but she still pays for her sins by dying of tuberculosis. In Western society, disease has traditionally been seen as punishment, or as the physical sign of some spiritual or psychological problem.

Are we generally kinder today than the people who used to drive lepers out of their villages? Or is compassion for the afflicted unnecessary now, because a cure is always within reach? Is the general state of health so much higher than before that the Victorian "semi-invalid" (person with a chronic, incurable condition) is a relic of the past?

Many things seem to have changed since the real model for the "fallen woman" Violetta breathed her last in the arms of her lover. Some diseases which used to be fatal can now be cured by antibiotics. Massive advertising by pharmaceutical companies implies that every form of physical OR psychological discomfort can be cured or at least well controlled. Campaigns against smoking and drinking, and those that promote physical fitness, aim to educate us to stop coping with unpleasant reality by lazing about and using substances which will harm us in the long run. We are led to believe that there is no longer any excuse for a less-than-robust state of health.

Somehow the widespread belief that each of us is responsible for our own health manages to survive the media exposure of environmental pollution by large corporations, as dramatized in such movies as Erin Brockovich. Citizens' lawsuits aganst the polluters have been won on the basis of evidence that serious health problems can be caused by toxins in the soil, the water and the air. So if an organ has been damaged by Agent X, how could the sufferer be personally responsible? Yet until a legal verdict has been passed, the affected individuals are usually treated as though each of them had done something, or failed to do something, which could have prevented the problem.

Contagious diseases (especially those that are sexually-transmitted) are even more easily blamed on the sufferers. Those who find themselves afflicted often accuse the ones who passed the cootie or virus to them of having vicious intentions. Class distinctions which separate "carriers" from (innocent) "victims" of a disease are largely based on existing assumptions about who is less-than (foreigners, the poor, gay men and female "sluts") as distinct from who has fully-human status (the straight, the white, the financially stable).

Then there is the widespread diagnosis of "stress" as a cause of almost everything from chronic fatigue syndrome to cancer. Being seen as "stressed" often means being seen as a weak person without coping skills, one who has taken on more than one can handle. Physical symptoms defined as stress-related reinforce the belief that we each create our own physical heaven or hell.

The current social climate gives rise to private conditions and discreet support groups. Public space is often inaccessible to those in wheelchairs or walkers or on crutches or canes. Suitable food for those with allergies (or even for vegetarians) is unavailable in many restaurants, especially the cheapest. Individuals cope with these conditions as best they can. No one wants to be seen as a whiner.

There is no way for those of us outside the health professions to know what percentage of any community lives with impaired health as long as it is stigmatized. The emotional support which can make a condition easier to bear is not available to invisible sufferers, or to those who are seen as needy or unclean. Those with a condition don't always know who else has the condition because some things still seem as unmentionable as sex and death used to be.

"Don't tell anyone else" has been the themesong of various people who have been exposed to this writer as having such conditions as epilepsy (my neighbour of years past had a seizure while we waited for the bus together), diabetes (which gets revealed over lunch), lupus (whose symptoms have to be explained), cancer (especially when treated with chemotherapy, which causes baldness), and AIDS, possibly the most unmentionable condition in the les/bi/gay/trans community. Perfect health seems to be the rarest condition among humans in general, even the most privileged.

Now that the more imaginative forms of sex (not only same-sex and interracial but group, toy-enhanced, D/s and S/M) can be discussed in public without meeting as much disapproval as Before Stonewall, can we talk about the less-fun aspects of physical reality? Can we admit the terrifying fact that none of us has complete control over what happens to our bodies? And can we offer each other compassion and practical help instead of judgment?

If you should feel tempted to shake my hand, please be gentle. I have arthritis in several fingers, and my gimpy joints are getting harder to hide. But don't tell anyone, will you? I could start wearing gloves all the time and give misleading hints about my reason.