"the Nature of the Body": Anatomizing Heterogender in Sexual Medicine (Report‪)‬

This paper draws on feminist science studies to critique the construction of women's sexual bodies in contemporary sexual medicine. As "female sexual dysfunction" has become a widely circulated disorder, the intensified medicalization of sexuality has entailed its reduction to physiological processes, and disturbances in these processes are assumed to have potential pharmaceutical solutions. Through an analysis of clinical research in sexual medicine, I demonstrate that the underlying assumptions about genital anatomies, and about sexual "function" and "dysfunction," reflect deeply entrenched cultural notions abut how properly heterosexualized bodies should act, Conclusions suggest that the contributions of recent feminist science studies are helpful in rethinking sexual medicine's deep ontology of sexual difference. **********