ABSTRACT
In 2003 British newspaper readers were faced with full-page advertisements showing a figure closely resembling Michelangelo’s David, complete with its tiny phallic endowment. The small text beneath the image revealed that the images were being displayed by Greenpeace in conjunction with its report on the human and environmental impacts of man-made chemicals (Greenpeace 2003). The accompanying information suggested that people should begin to worry about threats to men’s reproductive capacity owing to the environmental release of hormone-mimicking substances (for one of the leading early accounts of this topic, see Cadbury 1998). Chemicals used in plasticisers and other applications could be feminising the environment and leading to declining male fertility, in humans and in wild animals too, it was claimed.
