Sex and the City

Do men with hearing loss seek help?

I’ve been thinking about sex.

For those with mucky minds I’ll rephrase that. I’ve been thinking about gender.

The majority of people with hearing problems that I’ve encountered at various places (Hearing Link, ENT, lipreading, even a lunch get-together of hearing impaired folk) have been mostly female. For example, at lipreading classes there were two men and eight women, and one chap dropped out. Which makes me wonder – do males ‘tough it out’ on their own, resolute that they can cope with the problems in life, whilst females do the sensible thing and seek ways of coping with those problems?

To prevent a deluge of ‘how dare you’ messages let me just say that I – male, according to my birth certificate – avoid seeing a doctor at all costs and can’t imagine anything worse than going into hospital. Oh, add dentists to that. Sue – definitely female – has been through the gamut of hearing tests and examinations as well as a few stays in hospital and surgical procedures. Reading that back I can deduce that Sue has followed the best route while I have hidden.

Us chaps are renowned for avoiding the medical world for an obvious reason, we know it will get better in time. As a medical coward I feel hypocritical saying this, but the fact is that things can get worse rather than better and frighteningly quickly too. With hearing issues the best course of action is to seek help sooner rather than later – I’m not going to bore you with the obvious reasons for that. I will say with absolute certainty that isolating (that word again) oneself because of hearing loss can be destructive.

Which brings me back to – are there men who would benefit from help and advice but won’t ask? I’m never going to know, but I’d be interested to see your thoughts.