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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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"Sex for life"?
— men's counter-stories on 'erectile dysfunction', male sexuality and ageing | | Author(s) | Annie Potts, Victoria M Grace, Tiina Vares |
| Journal title | Sociology of Health & Illness, vol 28, no 3, April 2006 |
| Pages | pp 306-329 |
| Source | http://www.blackwellpublishing.com |
| Keywords | Older men ; Sexual activity ; Drugs ; Qualitative Studies ; New Zealand. |
| Annotation | The advent of (highly profitable) sexuo-pharmacological "solutions" to erectile changes that affect older men has spurred interest in the topic of male sexuality in mid-to-later life. "Success" stories abound in the media and in medical literature relating to restoring erection problems and ailing sex lives through drugs such as Viagra (sildenafil citrate), Uptima (apomorphine) and Cialis (tadalafil). In this paper, the authors explore some of the ways in which notions about ageing and male sexuality are changing in popular cultural and medical texts in response to the advent of Viagra and the increasing authority of biomedicine in this area. They also demonstrate how the recent biomedical endorsement of "sex for life" (the imperative to maintain an active youthful masculine [hetero]sexuality, defined in terms of male orgasm through penetrative sex) may be challenged by the very accounts of older men who are, or have been, affected by erectile difficulties and have themselves used drugs like Viagra. They present the perspectives of mid-to-late life heterosexual men in New Zealand whose stories question the contemporary biomedical privileging of erection and intercourse "at any cost and at any age". They argue that the current push to identify and treat so-called erectile dysfunction neglects some men's own experiences of alternative modes of relating sexually that they identify as "normal", "healthy", "enjoyable" and "satisfying" for them and their partners, and undermines their understanding of such changes or positive outcomes of ageing, experience and maturity. (RH) |
| Accession Number | CPA-060606216 A |
| Classmark | BC: BIU: LLD: 3DP: 7YN |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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