A funny thing happened on the way to theorizing medicalization: men’s bodies were ignored. This seems a startling statement, given the sheer number of articles and books written on the medicalization of—well, everything, it would appear. But with the exception of a few scattered but important pieces (see Ehrenreich 1983; Tiefer 1994; Potts 2000; Riska 2002, 2004; Mumford 1997), most of which are very recent, medicalization research has focused on genderless or female bodies. In medicalization research, as in most social-scientific research, gender seems to mean womanhood.

This is not to say that the male body is absent in...

In the months leading up to Super Bowl 2004, journalists¹ revisited a familiar theme, discussing which advertisements would air during the big game. That year more than ever, pharmaceutical advertising took center stage, particularly spots for new Viagra-like products Levitra and Cialis, claiming to treat “erectile dysfunction” (ED).² Such advertisements, like those for Viagra and Levitra, “official sponsors” of Major League Baseball and the National Football League (NFL) respectively, are known for using sports metaphors, such as “get in the game” and “step up to the plate,” and professional athletes as spokesmen, including Mike Ditka, NFL coach and member of...

The introduction of Viagra, the first oral treatment for impotence, has changed the way men view problems with sexual performance. Today, men are more inclined to define and treat their performance problems as medical problems than ever before, thanks in large part to Viagra. Perhaps as a result of Viagra’s success, as both a pharmaceutical product and as a cultural phenomenon, there is a now a burgeoning range of rival therapies for the treatment of impotence. Two such therapies recently received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for prescription use: Cialis, an impotence treatment drug developed by the pharmaceutical companies...

As necessary components to certain types of sexual encounters, biological reproduction, and disease transmission, semen and sperm—quintessentially male bodily fluids—figure prominently in heterogeneous social relationships. Their depictions in a variety of texts display an understanding of these fluids as intimately linked with masculinity, even as actual men or masculine actors performing socially relevant activities. Consider the depiction of sperm in children’s books—“sperm can swim so fast and so far” (Harris 1999, 22)—and in both allopathic and homeopathic medical textbooks—“one spermpenetratesthe cell membrane” (Premkumar 2003, 436). Moreover, semen, left at the scene of a...

Aging men’s lives and bodies are increasingly coming under medical jurisdiction. Images used to promote the latest erectile dysfunction medication, magazine articles about the best hair loss therapy, and television programs about successful aging consistently tell men to “see your doctor.” The movement of aging from a natural life event to a medical problem in need of treatment (Estes and Binney 1989) is an example of medicalization. While earlier studies have pointed to the medicalization of women’s bodies (Reissman 1983; Martin 1987; Riska 2003), we now see aging men’s bodies becoming medicalized as well.

This chapter examines two clear cases...

Medicine, like other disciplines, has been the subject of numerous histories. Official histories, written by members of the profession itself, tend to be stories of continuity and inexorable progress, involving great feats and heroic figures. The past is portrayed as leading inevitably to the present. Such histories, like those written by victors of battles, tend to confirm the rightness of the present; to show that things could not or should not have been otherwise. For example, the rise of anatomical dissection is seen to have brought enlightenment about the workings of the body, while the birth of germ theory is...

This chapter explores the gender relations of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the most prevalent form of childhood disability in North America. The incidence of ADHD increased at a stunning pace during the 1990s. We know this indirectly from the exponential increase in the production and distribution of the medicine used to treat ADHD children. Methylphenidate, better known as Ritalin, is the synthetic amphetamine drug prescribed to suppress the symptoms of ADHD. Between 1994 and 1999, its production rose by 800 percent and since more than 90 percent of it was consumed in the United States,¹ we can be...

The brutal physical and sexual terror that black men have faced throughout the course of their history in the United States was based on their racist—and often medically “documented”—construction as animalistic and dangerous savages. Because the Western racial paradigm is inundated with a fascination and fear of black sexuality (see Roberts 1999), this intersection between race and sexuality has proven to be continuously dangerous terrain for black men. As history reveals, racism has continuously been interwoven with physical and psychological attacks on black men’s sexual identity (Stevenson 1994; D’Emilio and Freedman 1988) and with a medicalization of race...

Mental illness has historically been called the “female malady” (Showalter 1985), but, even in the modern era, women are still more likely than men to be diagnosed and treated for depression (Gold 1998; National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH] 2001). Women are also twice as likely to suffer from most anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and agoraphobia (NIMH 2001). The overwhelming predominance of eating disorders among girls and young women is particularly well documented (Bordo 1993; NIMH 2001). Only diagnoses of substance abuse and attention deficit–hyperactivity disorders are significantly more prevalent among men (Substance Abuse and...