The last taboo

From Griffith REVIEW Edition 22: MoneySexPower
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.

Written by Charlie Stansfield

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Charlie Stansfield's biography and other articles by this writer

– Anna Freud

I met J in a bathroom in the winter of 1994. It was 4pm on the start of my first shift in a brand new job, a time I would later come to know as rush hour. There was the sound of people chattering over splashing water and a smell of urine and lavender soap. The bathroom was a draughty space with high ceilings and a line of cubicles with flimsy shower curtains. Underneath, I could see pairs of feet in rubber thongs moving briskly on the tiled floors.

I hovered in a doorway, until a shower curtain was pulled open and I faced a wet and shivering man with dark eyes and a huge smile. Tepid water and suds dripped all over his body. I was handed a white towel. Since no one had introduced us, I said ‘G'day, I'm Charlie' before tentatively beginning to pat him dry. A nurse asked me to help lift him on to a commode-like chair. She then fitted a plastic bottle on to his penis, securing it between his thighs. She told me to wheel him to the large dormitory-style bedroom and ‘just keep an eye on him'.

The six beds that filled the room all looked the same, but J inclined his head towards one in the corner where posters of the Spice Girls had been tacked up on the wall. I had never before sat in a room while a young, naked, good-looking man urinated into a plastic bottle – my conversational gambits were lacking. J came to my rescue by nodding towards the poster. I asked whether he liked the band, if he had seen them live and then began twittering on about the Spice Girls. We were interrupted five minutes later by a grossly overweight man wearing shorts and a white plastic apron who identified himself as Colin, and without saying another word kicked the brakes on the commode and whisked J away.

Later, in a dining room with twenty others, I fed J small mashed portions of food with a hard rubber spoon. His wrists were strapped down on to a tray in front of his wheelchair. I learned later this was to contain strong muscle spasms that could cause his arms to flay wildly, inadvertently punching anyone who got in the way.

J communicated by looking at a series of cartoon-like symbols on a board attached to the tray. By following his gaze, I pointed to a symbol, vocalised to check, and used this as a starting point to a conversation of sorts. Other than that, J's gaze went left for yes, right for no. The limited number of symbols meant that the conversation continued only by me asking as many closed questions as I could. He would then answer ‘yes-no', raise his eyebrows and incline his head as if to say ‘And you?' I would then answer the same questions. That night I learned he had lived in the hostel all his life and had no close family. He didn't like the food but liked to drink beer, and Emma Bunton was his favourite Spice Girl. He learned that I was single, from the United Kingdom and Geri Halliwell was mine.

Most of J's day was taken up with the daily activities of living. He required assistance to get up, shower, get dressed, shave, eat, drink, shit, get to any appointments or activities, and get back home again at 4pm. He and the other twenty or more residents would then be lined up outside the communal bathrooms to begin the shower process again. J could be lifted, transferred, dressed, undressed prodded, pushed, touched by up to a dozen or so different pairs of hands each day.

The communication symbols he had at his disposal – food, drink, bed, toilet, sick, man, woman, radio, television – reflected the life he led. However, he made quick and creative use of the limited vocabulary. That first night we met, he nodded across the dining room just as Colin knelt down to pick something up, displaying an enormous builder's crack spilling out of a pair of shorts. Having drawn my attention to it, J indicated ‘sick', then laughed wickedly.

After I had known him for a few months, J managed to convey that he wanted to go to a pub. So, one afternoon on a group outing, I left the other worker with a group eating fish and chips on the beach while the two of us dashed down Manly Corso for a beer in the Steyne Hotel. J persuaded me to help him skull three bottles of beer before I insisted we go back to the group. By this stage he was glassy eyed, pink faced and eyeing young women on the street. He'd look up at me and back at them, strain forward in his chair, laugh and make a ‘whoo-hoo!' call, oblivious to any strange looks. When we got back to the group, he fell asleep and remained that way, snoring for the rest of the afternoon.

At the time, the large charitable agency that operated the hostel and the day services he attended was in transition. Legislative changes meant that government funding became conditional upon meeting individual needs rather than maintaining institutional arrangements. Standards were set for services to meet. The people we worked with and for became ‘consumers', not ‘clients'. The changes, though slow, led to an opening up of opportunities in accommodation, employment, leisure and education. J moved into a small group home with three others. Some of the staff from the hostel moved with him. We increased our commitment to individual choice in recreational activities, but there was a lack of both wheelchair-accessible places and hands-on staff. The bowling alley and movies continued to be regular haunts. Community colleges ran courses on ‘Legal Rights' and ‘Making Friends'. Some time later, two trainers from the Family Planning Association were invited to present a groundbreaking course on sexuality.