ABSTRACT
Sex and sexuality are intimately connected to medicine. Sexual bodies come into existence in part through medical knowledges and practices, including physical and psychiatric classifications and definitions, medical research, and pharmaceutical and behavioral interventions and treatments. These connections are historically specific, and travel in complex ways around the world. Examples discussed in this chapter include the medicalization of homosexual bodies and identities, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, hormonal contraceptives, and the pharmaceuticalization of sexual desire. Each example demonstrates the complex intertwining of medical ideas and practices with sexual subjectivities and bodies.
