Climacteric Redux?

Abstract

This article analyzes the contemporary construction of male menopause as a clinical disorder. While medical interest in a male climacteric has waxed and waned over the past century, the past decade has witnessed a surge of both scientific and commercial interest in its diagnosis and treatment. In explaining why this is the case, the author suggests that shifting cultural narratives of aging and sexuality, rather than any new scientific evidence, are central to the construction of the aging male body as a pivotal site of biomedical intervention. The clinical and market success of Viagra has been critical in the development of a men's health industry, creating novel discursive and institutional structures that have fostered the medicalization of masculinity in middle and late life. The article analyzes clinical research, popular science reporting, and pharmaceutical marketing to demonstrate how the newly remedicalized male menopause has crystallized anxieties about aging in terms of biochemical de-masculinization.