To understand masculinity, sexuality, and health as socially constructed is to recognize the power of a society’s values in the formulation of discursive regimes and I the resulting fictions of normalcy. Because the biomedical model has defined :the unresponsive penis as a problem to be solved, the development of Viagra not only defines the solution to a condition, but discursively defines nordlal as well. Goffman’s list implicitly names all other “incomplete” men. Ana even while we pay attention to this list of credentials attributed to our “unblushing” male, we see him surrounded with other bits of information that will, eventually, question his claims to masculinity.

In the last twenty years, an explosion of websites and articles- l in both the popular and academic press have addressed the issue of masculinity, This emergence can be seen as (1) a legitimate response to the critique of women’s roles in feminist theory and criticism; (2) a part of the postmodern project of deconstructing societal hegemonies; and (3) a better account I of both the privileges and oppressions of masculine roles and performances. Robert Connell’s Masculinities (1995) extends the framework he suggests earlier in Gender and Power (1987) and that is echoed by Harry Brod in The Making of Masculinities (1987) that there are masculinities.

In The Male Experience (1983), James Doyle identifies therries similar to those developed earlier by Robert Brannon (1976) and implied ih Goffman’s list of complete men above. Brannon’s four “types” are the “BigIWheel,” the “Sturdy Oak,” “Give ‘em Hell,” and “No Sissy Stuff.” Doyle’ asserts that there are five things expected, required, of American men, four of which match Brannon’s labels precisely. They are “Be successful,” “be independent,” “Be aggressive,” and “Don’t be feminine.” The fifth is “Be sexual.” A successful man (the Big Wheel) in the United States today is largely defined by his ability to make money. The masculine ideal as successful provider is evident in this requirement. Success is not defined by being liked, but by being envied.” Independence (the Sturdy Oak) is demonstrated by selfreliance. The appearance of being able to take care of oneself in all circumstances and the tendency to avoid requests for assistance are commonly assumed masculine traits (e.g., don’t ask for directions!). Self-reliance is also exhibited through confidence and autonomy. Aggression (Givei’em Hell) is operationalized not only as a willingness to stand and fight or never give up, but also as a willingness to engage in risk-taking behaviors. Frequently, risktaking behavior is sex-specific as evidenced in the expression I “That takes balls!” Don’t be feminine (No Sissy Stuff) refers indirectly to psychodynamic theories of family relations.f A boy learns how to be a man not ;through the observance of his father (who is absent), but by not doing what his mother does. Furthermore, in the quest to achieve a version of masculin1ity, anything considered feminine becomes devalued. Later these stereotypes of “not woman” emerge in a variety of contexts. To show sensitivity or vulnerability is to open o*selfup to ridicule. Not showing or displaying “feminine” emotions is one way to perform masculinity.
To these Doyle adds his fifth requirement: “Be sexual.” To be masculine, a man must !establish an ability to consistently demonstrate sexual prowess through multiple female partners. Leonore Tiefer concurs, “Sexual virilitythe ability td fulfill the conjugal duty, the ability to procreate, sexual power, potency is everywhere a requirement of the male role, and thus ‘impotence’ is everywhere a matter of concern.”? But “Be sexual” really means “Be heterosexual,” with even Tiefer’sdefinition revealing exclusionary language codes such at “conjugal” and “procreate.”

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.

As a manufactured “update,” Viagra is the reiteration and recreation of male sexuality. This update is merely the latest test of endurance. Whether vi’rtual reality or ritual virility, Pfizer’s marketing ofViagra and the masculine imperative of erectile capability have performative functions. Even if enacted unconsciously (which I, for one, doubt they are) these functions are surely both politically and economically driven. By examining the discourses surrounding male sexuality and Viagra, this website seeks to locate a genealogy of factors that produce and maintain these assumptions of the sexualized male body.

Who and how “normal” is defined, then, delimits the space within which individuals (both professional and lay) investigate, perceive, and evaluate personal experiences and preferences. When norms are communicated by the health profession’s experts, matters of individual predilection and satisfaction often take ~ backseat to cultural conventions.

In the, case of “arousal disorders,” medical authorities (e.g., Pfizer Pharmaceuticals) begin with the assumption that the expectation is heterosexual intercourse. These expectations are then dictated via powerful and influential mediums such as news stories, television commercials, glossy magazine advertisements, and even online questionnaires. In this website I investigate various discourses of sexual normalcy and dysfunction, seek to bare the unexamined holes in sexual health discourses, posit claims about how those discourses define and delimit the scope of human sexuality, and provide a critical view of how Viagra has impacted our understanding of sexual health in the seven, years since its well-promoted debut. I delve into the discourses of masculinity that frame, reflect, deflect, and insinuate expectations for and of sexual health. I explore men’s sexual health as a social performance that is enabled by Viagra and the claims of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. Spiecifically, I analyze news stories in the popular press as well as Pfizer Pharniaceutical’s marketing materials. These two sets of “texts” reveal, in different ways, the arrival of Pfizer’s Viagra as a mechanism for phallocentrism and’ patriarchy. As discourse, these texts contribute to how we have come to understand the meaning of viagra.

Now let’s take a break and vontinue this story in the following post.

By reporting that 30 million American men suffer from erectile dysfunction and by supplying a simple and easily accessible treatment, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals sponsors the belief held by American men that they maintain perpetual virility. Goffman’s theory regarding the “performance of teams” accounts for the collective agreement with this belief; he argues that groups (men, for example) become invested in and buoy up a reality, rather than acknowledge the obvious flaws in its maintenance. As an integral part of a sexual performance, Viagra restores, or reiterates, when you buy viagra, the social role tHat men feel compelled to rehearse and replay their whole lives. For Richard Schechner, performances consist of “restored behaviors”-physical or verbal actions that are practiced and rehearsed.sf Finally, the term “performance” is ‘ubiquitous in the literature of sexual function (e.g., performance anxiety). Interestingly, “function” is derived from the Latinjungi, to perform.

British actor Fiona Shaw argues that both gender and performance are “metaphors for the unknown. “39 Rather than the unknown, I suggest both gender and performance are metaphors for the not-to-be-pinned-down; based in conscious and unconscious acts and affects, they are fluid and ambiguous. Gender both creates and subverts performances. And performances both create and subvert gender.

Gender is performative, then, when it constitutes as an effect the very subject it appears to express. As a performative mode, masculinity and femininity involve a stylized repetition of acts, culturally defined but ever changing-never fixed, but contingent.w Within a social structure, it is the individual agent/actor watching him-/herself being watched who is the, contingent variable in the maintenance or elaboration of societal hierarchies, binaries, and expectations. A performance, therefore, assumes an audience. Elin Diamond observes, “Performance is the site in which performativity materializes in concentrated form, where the concealed or dissimulated conventions of which acts are mere repetitions might be investigated and reimagined. ”

As culminations of repeated acts, gendered performances are, according to Moya Lloyd, “produced through the reiteration of the discursive I norms that precede, and are in excess of, her/him”. Our bodies perform, then, in concert with the discursive norms that stand outside them but to which we are beholden. Lynda Birke writes, “Processes involved in creating and continually recreating (sexed) bodies are partly material and partly social! experiential. “The medicalization of sexual dysfunction is such a process.

Nothing tells a man he is masculine-not muscles, intelligence, earning potential, an attractive partner, or even height-so much as his erection does. But as Denise Riley reminds us, “Only at times will the body impose itself or be arranged as that of a woman or a man.”44 What Riley’s quotation demonstrates in relation to the absent erection is how-by virtue of the erectionmen define themselves and their bodies by what is not female.

It is this aspect of performance that I find especially fruitful in analyzing masculinity, The performances of masculinity are collective ones in which members of a masculinity participate in an ongoing collusion that supports perceptions of an idealized masculine type. Goffman’s definition of performance as the: “activity of a given participant on a given occasion [serving] to influence other participants” highlights the essential component of audience to our individual performances.

But performance in the everyday-life sense is quite different from a performance in a ceremonial or theatrical sense where it also identifies a site for transformation.ss For anthropologist Victor Turner, the conscious transition necessary for transformations to occur requires a ritual passage across a threshold. “eddings, baptisms, initiation rites all have to do with change taking place within a structured ceremony. The movement from one stage of life to the next! results in the “making” of a new reality.36 For boys interested in losing their virginity and, as a result, taking a step closer to manhood, the liminal act that marks that loss/transformation is vaginal penetration. There is no substitute. What Viagra does is maintain the importance of this act well past middle age. Performance, in these examples, is always about transformation through accomplishment (and rarely about competency).
To be continued in a couple of days…

Viagra is prescribed to remedy a perceived aberration-namely, the unresponsive penis.P Hardness-whether we’re talking about the penis or the personality-has been described by sociobiologist Lionel Tiger as the essence of masculinity; the ability to become hard is thus a mark of masculiniry.’? So it seems that the nonerect penis creates two separate but related concerns for the performance of masculinity: it is not at its capacity and, regarding impotence specifically, it is not under control. These two concerns-capacity and control-are directly tied to notions of American masculiniry?

Historically, theories of sexuality have used dichotomies as a way to define normalcy. Psychoanalytic theorist Jacqueline Rose, however, has reminded t,ls of how dangerous it is to generalize “male” and “female” when discussing sexuality. 21 Despite advances in our understanding of sexuality over the last forty years, the medical discourse of sexuality has continued to do exactly what Rose warned against by (1) defining physiology in terms of functional ~nd dsyfunctional; (2) suggesting and producing correctives-like Viagra-that fail to take into account sexual variations and possibilities; and (3) maintaining a Cartesian separation of mind and body. Viagra, marketed as a tool to correct a supposed physiological dysfunction, is yet another example of how masculinism defines and controls what is normal.

In the ‘discourse of normalcy, Sophie Freud differentiates among three definitions of “normal”. From a statistical perspective, the norm is what is average or !typical-the normal in this regard is often viewed positively but with a suggestion of mediocrity. Another usage designates normal as ideal; the example of consummate good health (mental or physical) gives normal an above-average, aspirational, or potential quality. This definition becomes crucial in a study of how sexual health is assessed. The third definition attests to community standards of behavior. Here, normal is understood as that which is acceptable and commonplace-”He was a quiet neighbor. You know, normal.” She contends that this third definition of normal is especially likely to reflect culturally specific conventions. With regard to sexuality, Freud gives the examples of homosexuality, masturbation, and oral sex as behaviors that, at one time or another, were viewed as psychologically abnormal and implicated in a host of societal ills.

To Sophie Freud’s definitions of normal, psychologist Leonore Tiefer adds two more: the subjective and the clinical.s- The subjective defines normal from a. personal perspective: if I view myself as normal and you are like me, then )\OU are normal, too. Her definition of clinical normalcy shares aspects of both the statistical and the aspirational. In the clinical view of normalcy, if something demonstrates the capacity to exist, then it should exist. It is from thde fictions of normalcy, suggests sociologist Erving Goffman, that we “impute a wide range of imperfections. “Whether or not we believe human sexuality is biologically “natural” or the result of socially constructed “scripted behavior,” masculinity and sexual health are social performances enacted daily, with implications for both society’s expectations and individual sense-making.

Tiefer maintains that medical authorities-including physicians, health-care administrators, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance companiesprovide the dominant ideology of sexuality. Her 1995 website, Sex Is Not a Natural Act, examines the power dynamics driving the “biological bedrock”-the overriding tendency to privilege anatomical and physiological

domains in the discourse of human sexuality research and, more specifically,

sexual health.

Until relatively recently, according to Tiefer, sexual norms came from religious authorities eager to maintain moral boundaries. With regard to

women’s desire, Tiefer maintains that the audeo-Christian tradition dominant in Western society has, to some extent, endorsed the “denill of fleshly interests,” while for adolescent boys in particular, a high degree: of interest and enjoyment in sex-that is, heterosexual sex-is required for our culture’s

approved performance of teenage masculinity. Now, owing to the statistical data collected in the past century by the likes of William Kraft-Ebbing, Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia J ohnson, and Shere Hite, the American public turns to “experts” for their definitions of sexual normalcy. With regard to sexual health, the biomedical model (drawing on presentations of anatomy and physiology as universal and innate) and the statistical “evidence” (establishing the means and modes of shual variation) do not take into account the individual experiences of pleasure, fantasy, and sexual diversity.

This double dose of “hard” science, with the full endorsement of healthcare’s political economy, has resulted in the unquestioned authority with which the medical profession delimits, diagnoses, and doctors sexual dysfunction. What has happened with Viagra is that the very industry that produces a treatment also defines the condition it is meant to treat. Iri this sense, the medicalized discourse on sexual health is performative in Judith Butler’s sense of the term, for it produces as an effect the very subject it n’ames

Here I will introduce performance theory as a lens through which Viagra and related aspects of masculine identity-both individual and collectivecan be fully examined. As an academic keyword, “performance” .includes as much as it excludes. Feminist performance theorist Jill Dolan writes, “Performance happens all around us, if you look at it that way.”

At the annual meeting of the American Urological Association, held that year in Las Vegas, British physiologist Giles Brindley took a gamble. He had been working on a treatment for impotence that required injecting a drug (phentolamine) directly into the shaft of the penis.s That Brindley had been experimenting on himself was not a big surprise (he was fifty-seven at the time and self-study seemed to satisfy the ethics committee); that he injected himself moments prior to his presentation and then pulled down his pants so that his colleagues could take a look-now that was a surprise. Thus the pharmacological era of treating impotence was born.

In March 1998, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the release of Viagra (sildenafil citrate )-a highly anticipated prescription medicine, manufactured by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, to treat erectile impotence. In the first month of its release, nearly 600,000 prescriptions were filled; analysts predicted that many people would buy viagra and it would be would be a billion-dollar product. As a result, Pfizer’s stock values soared, making Wall Street investors as excited as Viagra users.f By November 1998, however, the FDA confirmed that at least 130 deaths in the United States had resulted from taking Viagra. This news prompted changes in product labeling and calls for more careful screening by physicians, as well as raising suspicion over Viagra’s rapid FDA approval.

Seven years later, curiosity about Viagra abounds. Its use is ~idespread among straight and gay men alike. Even as questions continue to be raised not only about the drug’s safety, but also about its ability to improve the quality of erections, decrease the “wait time” after ejaculation, and increase libido, its use as a party drug (to counteract erection-debilitating recreational drugs like cocaine and ecstasy) has become sufficiently common to give rise to a street name: poke. Moreover, the overwhelming success of Viagra has spurred the development and release of at least two competing prescription medications here in the United States.! As a profeminist, I have been trained to be cautious, indeed skeptical, about how the marketing and mass media industry language claims, especially where gender, health, and the body are concerned. As a man rapidly approaching “a certain age” I was :especially intrigued by the ways in which Pfizer Pharmaceuticals marketed Viagra, by how the news media seemed to uncritically embrace the arrival of “the potency pill,” and by how everybody was talking about it.

As a commercial product, Viagra entered the American lexic6n quickly and is now the most recognized brand name in the United States after Coca¬Cola.> Considered as a word, Viagra evokes vitality, aggression, grace, and vigor (its phonemic resemblance to both Niagara and vagina underscores some of these connotations and encourages others).» The myriad ways in which we have come to equate Viagra with sexual performance aptitude are no less remarkable. Three examples: During the television broadcast of a Kiss concert, lead singer Paul Stanley becomes frustrated by the fact that his microphone repeatedly droops on its stand as the result of a loose screw. He looks out at the audience and remarks, “My microphone needs Viagra.” When a technician runs onto the stage to tighten it, Stanley adds, “But that doesn’t mean Pm not excited.” A television commercial for Pennzoil motor oil begins with a white-haired gentleman rattling a medicine bottle labeled “Vigoroso.” As he swings open the bedroom door his waiting (and appar-ently willing) wife unties the bow of her nightgown. The very next scene shows the same man swinging open the door to the garage where a classic sports car awaits. This time he is shaking a can of Pennzoil as the graphic reads, “Improve performance and engine reliability.” And in Eddie Murphy’s Dr. Doolittle 2, a pair of Galapagos tortoises who “haven’t mated in a hun¬dred years” are told by the famous veterinarian to crush up some pills and mix them in with their food. The next scene shows the male lasciviously (but with characteristic slowness) approaching his mate, warning her to “get ready.” Taken together, these snippets from popular culture reinforce how Viagra-known as the “Pfizer Riser” in advertising circles-has significantly impacted attitudes and expectations about male sexual health, aging, erectile dysfunction, and, importantly, treatment options?

In the process of becoming erect, the penis begins to expand and harden due to increased blood flow to the groin. Originally developed to relieve the chest pain occasioned by heart disease, Viagra works by dilating blood vessels, thus improving blood flow through the arteries. For most of the last century, researchers and therapists thought impotence was caused by psychological concerns; the fear of being unable to produce an erection (thereby perpetu¬ating impotence) has been called “performance anxiety.” Certain medical experts (including, in an institutional sense, Pfizer) claim damaged arteries at the base of the penis cause “erectile dysfunction,” relegating impotence to a structural problem that Viagra can treat. Psychological and relational dynam¬ics have been erased from the equation. The rhetorical change from the fem¬inized, psychologically and relation ally flaccid “impotence” to the masculin¬ized, structurally based “erectile dysfunction” has contributed much to this erasure.f And by propping up the stumbling male libido through chemical means, Viagra perpetuates the towering illusion that is the male sex role. In so doing, II wonder ifViagra temporarily trumps a potentially transformative moment for masculine sexuality, a critical moment when male sexuality might consider pleasure as important as performance.

Twenty years prior to Viagra’s well-promoted debut, James Harrison called attention to the physiological effects of sex roles in a paper titled “Warning: The Male Sex Role May Be Dangerous to Your Health.” In this study, Harrison implicates some men’s risk-taking behavior as the likely source for everything from automobile accidents to heart attacks.” Some ( though not all) of the men who die after ingesting Viagra foolishly combine it with a form of nitrate-a chemical found in chest pain medication and in the recreational drugs known as “poppers”-despite awareness of the danger. The risk of such behavior is further amplified by a related psychological trait: in the quest to maintain the image of toughness, Harrison argues, men and boys deny pain and often fail to seek medical attention even when absolutely necessary.I?
Even at the risk of death, how does the construction of erections persist in the performance of masculine sexuality? In other words, how is it that the erection-in the face of so many other changes on our sexual horizon in the past forty years-has maintained its position as the sine qua non of manliness and of male pleasure? I will consider these questions from a gender studies perspective: Gender studies dispute essentialist claims of masculinity and fem¬ininity, recognizing that the cultural characteristics of each are constructed and arbitrarily attributed.U An examination of how Viagra reifies the metonymy bf erect penis and masculinity, of how it “accomplishes” the mas¬culine, can tell us a great deal about how power is exerted and how social disparities are produced and maintained. In this website I argue that Viagra is manufactured to preserve a particular masculinity and to maintain a specific cultural order.
By taking a pill, men are discouraged from examining the incapacitating effects that stress, poor diet, and akoholj drug abuse can have on their health generally and on the vascular system specifically.12 Rather than exploring other possibilities for sexual fulfillment or reassessing their interpersonal rela¬tionships, men (and their partners) are instructed to “ask your d’octor” and “see if a free sample ofViagra is right for you.” Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer ofViagra, thwarts the possibilities for the improvisation of male sexuality at a time in our history when it is becoming more and more obvious that traditional performances of masculinity need desperately to be ques¬tioned even as they are revalorized. The raison d’etre of most new technolo¬gies is to improve the status quo, rather than transform it. As a reinscription of heterotopia’s penile-vaginal penetration, the arrival of Viagra may in fact be stalling the potential for new models of male sexuality. We tend to think that necessity is the mother of invention but, as evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond suggests, new technologies can create a society’s need for them.