BMJ 2002;324:896-900 ( 13 April )

Education and debate

Sexual behaviour and its medicalisation: in sickness and in health

Graham Hart, professor a, Kaye Wellings, director b. 

a MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RZ, b Centre for Sexual Health Research, Department of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT

Correspondence to: G Hart g.hart@msoc.mrc.gla.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Religion used to define morally acceptable conduct, then doctors became interested in sexual behaviour. Now we live in a world where celibacy is the new deviance, and surgery and drugs are used to enhance sexual pleasure. Graham Hart and Kaye Wellings reflect on the extent and consequences of the medicalisation of sexual behaviour

"Sex survey ruined our wedding," screamed the front page of the Sun.1 The newspaper reported how a "couple had a furious row and called off their wedding after the bride-to-be revealed their sex secrets in a university survey." This could be a routine example of how the press uses research on sex to sell papers. This case is more interesting, however, because the groom to be was clearly unhappy with the extent of sexual surveillance, which arguably is a feature of the medicalisation of sexual behaviour in British society. To what extent has there been a . . . [Full text of this article]
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