ABSTRACT
Nurses are associated inescapably with sex. First, there are the sexual stereotypes. Female nurses are portrayed if not as virgin angels, then as sexual libertarians, libidinous, busty and adorned with starched aprons, black stockings and suspenders, and a coy manner. Alternative images present them as sexual prudes in the role of the middle-aged, overweight, domineering and repressed ‘matron’ figure. Male nurses are stereotyped as effeminate, homosexual, sexually incontinent, camp and in the wrong job because only female biology is thought to be capable of proliferating caring.
