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The rhetoric of biomedicine – whether consumed in popular jews outlets or through more authoritative medical journals-is a discourse. French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault defines a discourse as communication (whether written or spoken, text-based or symbolic) in an area 6f technical knowledge in which there are accredited specialists and a specialized vocabulary or jargon. According to Foucault, these technical fields are itbbued with increasing control over people. As a result, these “discursive regimes” have a profound impact on individual agency and the social structures: that shape society? What is most powerful about these discursive formations is their ability to both advocate for specific social experiences and dismiss the possibility for options. British psychologist Lynne Segal suggests thdt discourse theorists i emphasize that masculinity and femininity refer neither to any collection of traits, nor to some set of stereotypical roles, but rather to the effects of discursive practices-conventional ways of conceiving and representing reality which ‘produce sexual difference in specific contexts of knowledge.

In the texts that I investigate, I find both latent and manifest messages that are demonstrative of communication theorist Cheris Kramerae’s muted group theory. Kramerae contends that cultures typically utilize discourses that do not include speakers equally because not all speakers participate in its creation. Because a discourse is created by the dominant group, other groups (women, for instance, and marginalized men) cannot express their experiences.t? In the case of Pfizer’s marketing, the messages about sexual normalcy and dysfunction characterized and maintained by the dominant group will define expectations for all groups. I find an expectation of heteronorrnativity in sexual practices, the maintenance of the mind/body split in sexual health messages, and the deep structure of our nation’s political economy in healthcare.

The questions, hypotheses, and methods outlined in this iritroductory post continue to be explored in the remaining posts of thisiwebsite (for a particularization of my methodology, see Appendix A). To make the case outlined above, I begin by examining the role of social construction in the area of health, sexuality, and the body. The purpose of post Q, “Strange Bedfellows: Masculinity Studies and Sexology,” is to unpack the keywords “masculinity” and “sexual health” and to establish the importance of troubling these terms. According to Raymond Williams, the meanings of keywords are “inextricably bound up with the problems being used to discuss them.”50 As!a result, keywords are “messy” and subject to multiple readings and interpritations. This post clarifies my usage of these terms and previews my assumptions of their interplay. I also provide a historical overview of sexual health’s political economy as examined by cultural critics who utilize feminist theory as their primary method of investigating issues related to the body. In this overview, I discuss how this website will add to the feminist con-versation oflthe politicized body in contemporary culture. Finally, I should add that throughout this website, I employ architectural metaphors-sometimes overtly and often subtly-in order to demonstrate how Viagra is not only a localized treatment for erectile dysfunction but also an example of how bodies are politicized to serve powerful social constructions.

“Viagra - the best E.D. treatment” is the first of two posts in which I analyze a particular set of texts. Here I will examine over six years of news stories covering Viagra-from its auspicious debut to the introduction of two tompeting erectile dysfunction drugs: Levitra and Cialis. In this post, I cllronicle the Viagra stories of the popular press, specifically those articles appelaring in the New York Times) Newsweek) and u.s. News & World Report. These sources maintained extensive coverage before, during, and some five years after the product’s release to the public and, as a result represent the (re )education of the public’s understanding of erectile dysfunction. These popular press reports expose the ways in which the medical discourse of sexual health maintains dominant ideologies. Furthermore, popular press reports provide the larger American society (and perhaps, the world) that is not a target user ofViagra with information about sexual dysfunction in ways that produce and maintain social stock knowledge.

Next, I analyze how Viagra has been promoted. post 4, “Shims and Shills: Viagra and the Marketing of Transcendence,” interprets Pfizer’s program of action as evidenced by its advertising and marketing campaign. I explore the Ways in which Pfizer creates its target market of erectile dysfunction sufferers through print, television, and direct-to-consumer advertising, including ihformational videos. How this consumer is “drawn” reveals Pfizer’s expўctations about male sexualiry.st In addition, I explore a particular piece of promotional material-a “premium”-provided to physicians and healthcare providers.s- This information reveals the rhetorical strategies developed tb answer the legitimate concerns of the Viagra user. These concerns, once extrapolated, are likely to provide the greatest clues to the possibilities for acccending dominant beliefs about sexuality. Sociologists Adele Clarke and Yirginia Oleson write, “Spaces where discourses meet agentic actors can bb important sites for diffraction and revision.