The medicalization of male sexuality

In Western societies social scripts define male sexuality as active, characterized by a constant and high sexual desire, and performance oriented, where the erection have a central role. As a result of this perspective, male sexuality is increasingly object of medicalization and treated as a pathology when it deviates from a socially shared stereotypical imagery. In recent pharmacological trials, attention has therefore focused on some aspects of sexual activity such as the percentage of "sexually satisfactory" events, and this perspective on quantity rather than quality of sexual activity has been criticized. The difficulty in understanding the feeling of these men could derive from a basic bias, represented by the meaning that men attribute to the expression "satisfying intercourse" probably influenced by dominant sexual scripts and therefore centered on performance rather than emotional aspects. This lack could in some way explain the phenomenon of drug drop out even when therapies are effective. For this reason, to build a more complex and rich vision of male sexual difficulty seems increasingly important and central in the sexual medicine field.

Keywords: Sexual dysfunction, sexual therapy, male sexuality, medicalization, sexual medicine

, La medicalizzazione della sessualità maschile in "RIVISTA DI SESSUOLOGIA CLINICA" 1/2018, pp 5-35, DOI: 10.3280/RSC2018-001001