As a physician in residency I see a fair amount of unclothed people. (Or is that unclothed persons...?) I don't know if desenitized is the right word--I would say we in the medical field become accustomed to seeing people without their clothes on.
As far as noticing beauty,... I do, but that is not to say that I am thinking prurient thoughts. Rather, what I tend to notice is how the body changes with age and illness, and occasionally I see a younger patient and I am struck by their beauty and health. It is certainly a much wider concept of beauty than what I had as a teenager. And of course, there is beauty around besides the blush of youth.
Another interesting thing is that some patients can be only partially undressed and seem very much naked, while others are quite exposed but seem merely nude. Many veterans, for example, are comfortable undressing and being examined in private areas, but there are some who are not. Many of the women I have treated for breast cancer are somewhat uncomfortable with having their breast examined, but others are very relaxed. And of course, many patients are not comfortable even talking about medical matters pertaining to their most private bodily parts.
Often, uneducated people use words that are considered crass or vulgar when relating a problem, but of course they lack a wider vocabulary. Linguaphiles such as the members of this board would be much more likely to say "Doctor, I am having pain when I urinate," while a less educated person would perhaps say "Doc, it hurts when I p*ss." Others yet realize that p*ss is not a polite word, but they are at a loss for finding the "proper" word, and end up feeling embarassed.
I to try to make the naked patient feel merely nude, and to carefully introduce a subject in a way that shows that there is nothing to be ashamed of. But sometimes it's a lost cause and it can be rather comic.
I recently had a patient, a young woman who seemed reasonably educated, who had had rectal cancer. She had undergone an operation to remove most of her colon and rectum. She was left with a colostomy, and the anus had been completely sewed up as part of the operation. She told me she was having pain "where my butthole used to be." I tried to gently introduce the term "anus" or even "rectum" without coming across as too didactic or rude. But it was hopeless. Eveery time she had a check up she would use the word "butthole" and, honestly, it embarassed me. I never could get her to adopt what I considered a more "appropriate" term. I think my embarassment had a lot to do with my concept of class distinctions. The patient in question seemed to exhibit a contradiction between her vocabulary and her overall demeanor. Had it been a veteran who had served in the navy in WWII I probably could have easily fallen into a mode of discourse with him that was more relaxed and anything he said I could have taken in stride.
