Medicine, Masculinity, and the Disappearance of Male Menopause in the 1950s

Watkins, Elizabeth Siegel

doi:10.1093/shm/hkn029

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…A full historical review of the medicalization of sexuality, including later‐life sexuality, is beyond the purview of this paper. Useful sources here include Boyle (), Bullough (), Fishman (), Hirshbein (), Irvine (), Marshall and Katz (), McLaren (), Roberts (), Sengoopta (), and Watkins ().…”

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confidence: 99%

The Graying of “Sexual Health”: A Critical Research Agenda

Marshall

2011

Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie

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This paper critically interrogates the concept of sexual health as it has evolved in relation to older adults. I draw on social and cultural studies of aging, feminist studies, and science and technology studies to outline a research agenda which treats sexual health as a point of articulation for a range of technologies and processes which shape mid- and late-life sexualities. Such an agenda may be able to more fully interrogate the sites and processes by which sexualities are being shaped, the forms of sexual agency on offer to older people, and the contemporary reconstruction of sexual life courses.

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confidence: 99%

The Graying of “Sexual Health”: A Critical Research Agenda

Marshall

2011

Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie

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“…Although the different diagnostic categories present various points in common, being similar in their description of the majority of symptoms referring to age-related male hormone decline, there are differences in the process by which each category is constructed 2,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] . For this reason we didn"t think it was advisable to consider them purely as synonyms.…”

Section: Medicalization Hormones and Male Ageing: A Brief Reflectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hormônios, sexualidade e envelhecimento masculino: um estudo de imagens em websites

Thiago

Russo

Júnior

2016

Interface (Botucatu)

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This study focuses on the construction of male hormonal decline relating to aging as part of a more general process of medicalization of male sexuality and aging. In order to accomplish this objective, 14 websites of pharmaceutical laboratories that sell drugs for male sexual health and seven websites of medical-scientific associations focusing on male sexual health were surveyed. We used the images found on these sites as analysis material. Based on our analysis, we discuss the existence of a partnership between the medical-scientific associations and the pharmaceutical industry, which tends to present male aging as a medical problem and promotes hormone replacement therapy (HRT) with testosterone as a way of treating it. This therapy is also presented as a means to recover happiness, productivity, "quality of life" and wellbeing.

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“…Part of the problem for earlier reincarnations of anti‐ageing medicine – and especially for that related to sexuality – was a continuing association with quackery and the less‐reputable rejuvenation enterprises that were seen to prey on the sexually weak. The reticence of mainstream medicine to promote sexual rejuvenation could be seen, for example, in the downplaying of the potential sexual benefits of testosterone supplementation in treating the ‘male climacteric’ in its American incarnation in the 1940s (Marshall 2007 , Watkins 2007 , 2008). Despite this, as those such as Susan Squier (1999) and Elisabeth Watkins (2008) have pointed out, throughout the 20th century the idea of rejuvenation – including sexual rejuvenation – continued to find resonance in the popular imagination despite the pooh‐poohing of the medical establishment.…”

Section: Sexual Medicine and The Sex/age Problematicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Science, medicine and virility surveillance: ‘sexy seniors’ in the pharmaceutical imagination

Marshall

2010

Sociology Health & Illness

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While historically sex has been seen primarily as the prerogative of the young, more recently, the emphasis has been on the maintenance of active sexuality as a marker of successful ageing. A new cultural consensus appears to have emerged which not only emphasises the importance of continued sexual activity across the lifespan, but links sexual function with overall health and encourages increased self-surveillance of, and medical attention to, late-life sexuality. Drawing on historical accounts, clinical research, popular science reporting and health promotion literatures, I explore several key shifts in models of sexual ageing, culminating in the contemporary model of gender, sexuality and ageing that has made ageing populations a key market for biotechnologies aimed at enhancing sexual function. Two central concepts frame my analysis: 'virility surveillance', where age-related changes in sexual function are taken as indicative of decline, and the 'pharmaceutical imagination', where sexual lifecourses are reconstructed as drug effects revise standards of sexual function. After consideration of how narratives emerging from qualitative research with older adults challenge the narrow depiction of sexual functionality promoted by pharmaculture, conclusions call for continued critical inquiry into the biomedical construction of sex and age.

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Medicine, Masculinity, and the Disappearance of Male Menopause in the 1950s

Cited by 13 publications

References 19 publications

The Graying of “Sexual Health”: A Critical Research Agenda

The Graying of “Sexual Health”: A Critical Research Agenda

Hormônios, sexualidade e envelhecimento masculino: um estudo de imagens em websites

Science, medicine and virility surveillance: ‘sexy seniors’ in the pharmaceutical imagination

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