If I'm having pain in a testicle, I know that the doctor is going to touch my genitalia. If I'm having pain in my throat, however, I can't imagine a circumstance where a doctor could convince me that he or she needs to examine my genitalia. If the doctor forces the issue, or performs the exam without my knowledge or consent (anesthesia, for example), I'm feel like I'd be able to argue that I was sexually assaulted. The reason is that an exam of that type wouldn't be reasonably expected based on my symptoms. If a doctor had reason to perform the exam, then a) I'd most likely be informed, and b) it would no longer meet your "without medical necessity" requirement.

Also, I really doubt many doctors are in medicine to be able to fondle their patients. I know it's a common joke that men go into gynecology to be able to grope women, but the level of commitment required to get through medical school in order to do it is huge compared to the expected non-medical "benefits." I think there was an AMA on reddit a while ago, and I know I've read articles about this before, which said that you sort of get sick of seeing so much vagina. It's like working at a mint, the sort of person who sees the newly minted cash as cash and not "just the product" after their first week is the sort of person that doesn't keep their job long.

The same can't be said of the TSA. I don't know how apocryphal the references are, since I'm not American, but reddit has me believing that TSA screeners have roughly the same qualifications as the average McDonald's employee. You certainly don't need a college degree to get the job. This leaves open the possibility of people taking the job mainly for sexual satisfaction. Again I'm reference apocryphal reddit anecdotes, but there was a post recently about a guy whose whole strategy for getting through security was to stand directly behind the hottest girls in line, because they tended to be "randomly" pulled into the scan-or-grope line.

Just to be clear, and I'm not saying you said that I said that (uh...), I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of doctors are not in the profession for this reason (a reasonably large part of my family and friends are doctors, all of them fine professionals with nothing but the best intentions in mind). So just to make clear that I'm not hammering on doctors here :)

That said, OK let's take away the consent. Let's say you're under anesthesia for removing your sinuses and the doctor pulls up the blanket and performs a genital exam. I still hold that this is not sexual assault.

(Note that this is not a hypothetical example. It is fairly common practice in Dutch hospitals for interns to practice gynecological exams on women on the surgery table, even without these women knowing. 4 or 5 students literally line up for this practice. There was a minor fuss about it a few years ago, maybe standards have been changed since then. The references I can find about it date from 2005-2006 and are all in Dutch. The doctors back then thought it was normal and nothing to be up in arms about. I have no reason to believe doctors in other countries have different methods; after all, otherwise where are these students going to practice? ).

Sorry, I didn't intend to imply you said anything of the kind. It was meant to be a segue into "molesters have a new career path" and contrast this with doctors in general, not to put words in your mouth. Reading it now, I definitely see that I could have worded it better.

Regarding your later point, though, those practices aren't ok with me. When I was a teenager, I had some issues that I had to see a urologist about, and he asked me a couple times if he could check my prostate. I refused every time because I was uncomfortable with the procedure (yes, medically I probably should have, but that didn't factor for my 15-year-old-brain). Whether or not its sexual assault, or even assault at all, doesn't really matter. What matters is your perception, and what you would be ok with someone doing to you.

I've got a touch of RSI in my right hand. There is a very real possibility that somewhere in the next few decades I may need surgery for it, since I'm a programmer and arm/wrist abuse is pretty much par for the course. If I went for that surgery and was told "oh, and while I've got you under, I'm going to perform a prostate exam on you" then I'd definitely be looking for another doctor.

Everyone needs to have control over their own body, and there are limits to what we should have to endure. Having to choose between having nude photos taken of you, or having your genitals groped in order to travel around the country seems to be over the line of what I, and apparently many others, would deem acceptable.

I will not enter the United States because of this.

I'd argue that they have no more right to do a gynecological exam on a patient under anesthesia than they do to do any other procedure completely unrelated to the primary one. Absurd: could you imagine if you were getting your tonsils out and the doctor just decided to do an unwarranted prostate exam? Or perform liposuction as an added bonus. Or amputate a limb? All we're talking about is degrees of the same thing (being subjected to procedures that you have no chance of declining)- where do we draw the line once we go there at all?

Still, in the case of the prostate exam, I'm not sure there is a criminal legal remedy against it. It's not assault, it's not sexual assault, at best it's a breach of patient-doctor confidence. A civil case, to the best of my knowledge. What kind of 'damage' are you going to claim? Statutory damages (for those in countries where these exist) are not going to help because if it can't be qualified under a statute, there's not going to be much 'statutory damage' either. Mental anguish? Maybe. It's a tough sell to most courts in most of the world though.

Doctors may have professional codes of conduct, maybe it's regulated in there, but doctors here in the Netherlands have those too - many of them, being a very regulated country; yet still for years these involuntary examinations were done, without the women knowing even. I see no reason to believe that this situation would be different in every other country of the world; in other words, if it happens in the Netherlands, I would find it logical that the same things happen in other countries. Not all other countries, just some.

There may be Canadian case law clarifying this, I don't know, but prima facie it doesn't seem to me that your position is correct.

Note that other legal systems have problems with doing things under false pretenses. A woman claimed rape because her husband's brother slid into bed with her and initiated sex, in which she went along. The guy didn't disclose explicitly that he wasn't the woman's husband. When she found out she felt (justifiably) violated. Yet the guy was acquitted because there was no statute on getting sexual favors under false pretenses (there is now by the way, as a result of this case).

(3) For the purposes of this section, no consent is obtained where the complainant submits or does not resist by reason of

(a) the application of force to the complainant or to a person other than the complainant;

(b) threats or fear of the application of force to the complainant or to a person other than the complainant;

(c) fraud; or

(d) the exercise of authority.

I was referring to part d. Part d would also apply to TSA officials as far as I know, but if they were on Canadian soil they'd probably get some special exemption. Also, I don't believe they technically do the searches on Canadian soil. Airports are weird.

Force means something a bit looser than you probably think it does. A light tap can be considered assault, let alone grabbing and poking.