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Renate Klein
(Australia)
Big Porn + Big Pharma: Where the Pornography Industry Meets the Ideology of Medicalisation[65]
Introduction
As the pornification of culture continues to engulf our daily lives, so too does the normalisation of medicalisation. Increasingly, all aspects of our health are deemed in need of medical scrutiny and ‘personalised’ attention. We are checked, screened and tested from before birth to old age and when (invariably) found deficient and straying from the ‘holy’ average (which, in fact, changes quite frequently), we are plied with a bewildering array of ever more tests, drugs and procedures. In 2006, global revenues for ‘Big Porn’ were reported to be approaching US$100 billion, and ‘Big Pharma’ has projected profits of US$1000 billion (1 trillion) by 2013.[66] These 2 industries are linked in many ways and it is some of these connections that I will examine in this article. I include the cosmetic and reprogenetic industries under the rubric of Big Pharma and will discuss the medicalisation of (porn)sex, the need for bodies to conform to pornsex, the medical hazards of pornsex, reproporn, and lastly, what to make of the new disease ‘porn addiction’.
1 The Medicalisation of (Porn)Sex
Pornsex portrays women as horny ‘hos’ with an insatiable appetite for oral, anal and vaginal penetration, and men as domineering studs whose erections need to be bigger and ‘last longer’[67] so as to fill female orifices and spill their ‘cum’. These portraits create anxieties for many ‘ordinary’ women and men who feel ill-equipped to live up to porn industry standards.
‘Luckily’, Big Pharma has come to their rescue by, first, creating new diseases of sexual dysfunction and, second, offering a cure for them. For men with less than pornsex erections in size and duration, Viagra (meaning ‘tiger’ in Sanskrit) brings salvation. Initially prescribed for ‘erectile dysfunction’ – but now also used as an ‘enhancement drug’ easily available online for any man who wants more prowess in his ordinary, pornographic, or prostitution sex – Pfizer’s little blue pill has raked in close to US$2 billion since 1998.[68] Viagra works by increasing blood flow to the penis, but carries the short-term risk of possibly fatal stroke and heart attack.[69]
Diagnosing – and ‘curing’ – female sexual dysfunction (FSD) has proven a far greater challenge for Big Pharma. To repeat the commercial success of blue Viagra for men, pink Viagra, and later Cialis (manufactured by Eli Lily), seemed a lucrative answer. But in order to attract female customers, women first had to be convinced they suffered from FSD. The republication of earlier findings in a 1999 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association did just that (Laumann et al., 1999). Seven survey questions were asked of a group of 1500 US women, including: did they lack interest in sex? did they not have an orgasm? were they anxious about their sexual performance? – even if it was only once in the past year. A ‘yes’ response to just one of these questions branded the respondent as suffering from FSD. Adding up these one-time events, the researchers concluded that a whopping 43% of US women suffered from female sexual dysfunction.[70]
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1 My heartfelt thanks go to Susan Hawthorne, Helen Pringle, Abigail Bray, Melinda Tankard Reist, Diane Bell and Maree Hawken who have all commented on this chapter. I really value your input; just occasionally I had to leave one of my ‘Swissisms’. When working on such distressing issues as this book contains, good friends are crucial. All shortcomings in this chapter are of course my own.
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2 ‘Global pornographic revenues are approaching $100 billion…’, http://www.morssglobalfinance.com/the-economics-of-the-global-entertainment-industry/; ‘Global pharmaceutical market value is expected to expand to $975+ billion by 2013’, http://www.pharmaceutical-drug-manufacturers.com/articles/pharmaceutical-market-trends-2010.html.
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3 ‘Want Longer Lasting Sex?’ is one of the many slogans by the Advanced Medical Institute (AMI) that are exhibited on towering billboards in Australian cities, http://amiaustralia.rtrk.com.au/?scid=46607&kw=3828705&pub_cr_id=6221612116 despite an order by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in 2009 to remove them; see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1109523/Nasal-spray-advert-slogan-Want-Longer-Lasting-Sex-banned-watchdogs.html.
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4 In March 2011, Pfizer reported global sales of $1.93 billion for Viagra, with Viagra Jet, a chewable, its latest offering, now selling in Mexico, http://www.newslocale.org/health/hnews/pfizer_to_introduce_chewable_viagra_jet_in_mexico_2011031911513.html.
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5 Long-term use of Sildenafil (Viagra) may lead to difficulty breathing, vision problems, headaches and flushing. Erections can last longer than 4 hours. Meika Loe (2006) has documented the less than happy reactions by female partners of Viagra users.
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6 A similar British study published in 2007 found that only 18% of women perceived a one-time lack of orgasm and interest in sex as a problem. The figure fell to 6% when the women were asked if they were distressed by these events (King et al., 2007).