La place de la sexualité dans le travail infirmier : l’érotisation de la relation de soins

The observation that practically no sociological study on the place and function of sexuality in nursing practice exists prompted us to carry out a qualitative social-psychological study in 2007 and 2008 among 64 nurses and caregivers working in the general area of cancer care, applying the sexual scripts theory (Gagnon, 1990), which proposes a distinction between cultural scenarios, interpersonal scripts and intra-psychic scripts. To deal with the specifically professional aspects related to sexuality as it emerged in the interviews, the theory was completed and further developed by the concept of ‘professional scenario’. Our survey brought to light problems related to communication involving sexuality and to the eroticization of healthcare relationships. This in turn revealed a double opposition between: cultural scenarios wherein the nurse becomes the object of sexual fantasies as against professional scenarios aiming to desexualize the caregiver in the nurse-patient relationship, and eroticization, perceived as either facilitating or hindering that relationship. When it is included in nurses’ professional scenarios, taking into account the eroticization of care-giving can be beneficial to both patient and nurse.