I thought I’d take a minute away from focusing on travelling and bedwetting to the challenge of being an adult bedwetter in general. It is interesting, and disappointing, how our society groups bedwetting into the category of medical conditions which are taboo and somehow shameful. When you run an internet search for the term ‘bedwetter’ you invariably get, among articles oriented around bedwetting in children, unhelpful hits directing you to sites where someone is being accused of being a ‘liberal bedwetting something.’ Here the implication is that someone who wets the bed is perhaps weak or effeminate or immature or some other school-yard-worthy slur which really shouldn’t be an issue among adults.
Now the use of this slur can be explained by considering that continence is often linked to maturity. As we grow up, we are expected to gain increasing control over our bodily functions, such that once we reach a certain age we are supposed to have graduated from wearing diapers, having day time accidents, and finally wetting the bed. Thus being continent is supposed to be a sign that we have reached some developmental milestone, and therefore accusing someone of having not achieved this stage is a way of belittling them.
It is strange that other, non-continence related, medical conditions are not used in the same way. Though I suppose people can be accused of being short sighted on a particular issue, (and there are lots of mean things about intelligence that are said) I can’t think of too many expressions that are as baffling as ‘bedwetting liberal.’
This is just one of the many challenges that an adult suffering from nocturnal enuresis must endure. When travelling nary an eye is raised when someone uses a cane, or walker, or carries their medication with them. But packing a couple of diapers in your carry on will almost certainly raise the eyebrows of a security person searching your bag.
It does say something about our society that we have relegated issues relating to certain bodily functions (or dysfunctions) to the realm of the taboo, and certainly doesn’t help sufferers of society in any way.
It is uplifting to see some people trying to fight this taboo. While they have an economic incentive to do so (i.e. selling more of their absorbent products), Depend’s ‘Underwareness‘ certainly represents an instance of an effort to fight against this taboo.
This campaign certainly fills a need. From a corporate perspective, if there is a powerful taboo around discussing incontinence-related issues, then fewer people will buy Depend’s product (given the power of word of mouth advertising etc.). Additionally, having people more comfortable buying products in shops certainly makes things easier.
I know I buy most of my absorbent products online to avoid the embarrassment of purchasing them in public, embarrassment which only seems to exist around buying condoms or other forms of birth control when you are a teenager, and buying adult diapers.
But the campaign does serve to challenge a very real taboo in society and one that hurts lots of people, and thus should be applauded.
I do wonder whether efforts to break down the taboos which surround incontinence-related problems will ever be successful in some circles – the kind of person who would accuse someone of being a bedwetting-liberal isn’t likely to be on the cutting edge of progressive social change – but they certainly bring awareness to the issue and help normalize it to some extent.
The Bedwetting Traveller 