Mexican men of different generations, exposed to different cultural ideas about sex, manliness and marriage, often hold divergent ideas about how men’s sexuality should change over the life course. Based on 250 interviews with male urology patients at an urban Mexican hospital, this article reveals differences in self-identified older and younger men’s ideas of age-appropriate sexuality and pursuit of sexual health interventions. Older men frequently expected youthful promiscuity to give way to a family-focused older age and saw decreasing erectile function as a ‘‘natural’’ embodiment of this shift. Conversely, younger men who strove to be different than their once-womanizing fathers often saw decreased erectile function as a relationship-threatening medical problem appropriate for erectile dysfunction (ED) treatment. Despite the fact that ED drugs may facilitate sexual penetration that could be associated with ‘‘macho’’ sexuality, they were viewed most positively by younger study participants seeking to avoid machismo by pursuing affective marital sex.
Amuchástegui, Ana, and Ivonne Szasz, eds. 2007. Sucede que me canso de ser hombre. Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico.
2.
Amuchástegui, Ana, and Peter Aggleton.2007. ‘‘‘I Had a Guilty Conscience Because I Wasn’t Going to Marry Her’: Ethical Dilemmas for Mexican Men in their Sexual Relationships with Women. ’’ Sexualities10:61-81.
3.
Carillo, Héctor.2002. The Night is Young: Sexuality in Mexico in the Time of AIDS. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
4.
Carillo, Héctor.2007. ‘‘Imagining Modernity: Sexuality, Policy, and Social Change in Mexico.’’ Sexuality Research and Social Policy: Journal of NSRC4:74-91.
5.
Carrier, Joseph.1995. De Los Otros: Intimacy and Homosexuality among Mexican Men. New York: Columbia University Press.
6.
Carrier, Joseph.1999. ‘‘Reflections on Ethical Problems Encountered in Field Research on Mexican Male Homosexuality: 1968 to Present.’’ Culture, Health and Sexuality1:207-21.
7.
Foster, George M.1994. Hippocrates’ Latin American Legacy: Humoral Medicine in the New World. Langhorne, PA: Gordon and Breach.
8.
González-López, Gloria.2005. Erotic Journeys: Mexican Immigrants and their Sex Lives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
9.
Gutmann, Matthew C.1996. The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
10.
Gutmann, Matthew C.2007. Fixing Men: Sex, Birth Control, and AIDS in Mexico. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
11.
Herdt, Gilbert, and Shirley Lindenbaum .1992. The Time of AIDS: Social Analysis, Theory, and Method. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
12.
Hirsch, Jennifer.2003. A Courtship after Marriage: Sexuality and Love in Mexican Transnational Families. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
13.
InegiCausas seleccionadas de mortalidad por sexo 2005. INEGI 2005 (accessed : March 14, 2011). http://www.inegi.org.mx/prod_serv/contenidos/espanol/bvinegi/productos/integracion/sociodemografico/mujeresyhombres/2007/MyH_2007_2.pdf
14.
Inhorn, Marcia C.2004. ‘‘Middle Eastern Masculinities in the Age of New Reproductive Technologies.’’Medical Anthropology Quarterly18:162-82.
15.
Jiménez Guzman, Lucero.2003. Dando Voz a Los Varones: Sexualidad, Reproducción y Paternidad de Algunos Mexicanos. Cuernavaca, Morelos: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias.
16.
Loe, Meika.2004. The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America. New York: New York University Press.
17.
Lumsden, Ian.1991. Homosexuality, Society and the State in Mexico. Toronto, ON: Canadian Gay Archives.
18.
Mamo, L., and J. Fishman.2001. ‘‘Potency in All the Right Places: Viagra as a Technology of the Gendered Body.’’ Body & Society7:13-35.
19.
Marshall, Barbara L., and Stephen Katz.2002. ‘‘Forever Functional: Sexual Fitness and the Ageing Male Body.’’Body & Society8:43-70.
20.
McKee Irwin, Robert.2003. Mexican Masculinities. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press.
21.
Paz, Octavio. ( 1961) 1985. The Labyrinth of Solitude and other Writings. Translated by L. Kemp. New York, NY: GroveWeidenfeld.
22.
Potts, Annie, Victoria Grace, Nicola Gavey, and Tiina Vares.2004. ‘‘Viagra Stories: Challenging ‘Erectile Dysfunction.’’’Social Science & Medicine59:489-99.
23.
Prieur, Annick.1998. Mema’s House, Mexico City: On Transvestities, Queens, and Machos. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
24.
Ramirez, Josué.2009. Against Machismo: Young Adult Voices in Mexico City. New York, NY: Berghahn Books.
25.
Rubin, Gayle.1992. ‘‘Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality’’ [1984]. In Social Perspectives in Gay and Lesbian Studies: A Reader (pp. 100-134), edited by Peter M. Nardi and Beth E. Schneider, 1998. New York: Routledge.
26.
Rojas, Olga Lorena.2007. Criar a los hijos y participar en las labores domésticas sin dejar de ser hombre: reflexiones sobre algunos varones. In Sucede que me canso de ser hombre: Relatos y reflexiones sobre hombres y masculinidades en México (pp. 496-541) edited by A. Amuchastegui and I. Szasz.Mexico City: El Colegio de México.
27.
Salguero Velásquez, Ma. Alejandra.2007. Preguntarse cómo ser padre es también preguntarse cómo ser hombre: reflexiones sobre algunos varones. In Sucede que me canso de ser hombre: Relatos y reflexiones sobre hombres y masculinidades en México (pp. 563-599) edited by A. Amuchastegui and I. Szasz.Mexico City: El Colegio de México.
28.
Tiefer, Leonore.1994. ‘‘The Medicalization of Impotence: Normalizing Phallocentrism.’’ Gender and Society8:363-77.
Wardlow, Holly, and Jennifer S. Hirsch .2006. ‘‘Introduction.’’ In Modern Loves: The Anthropology of Romantic Courtship and Companionate Marriage (pp. 1-26) edited by J. S. Hirsch and H. Wardlow.Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
31.
Wentzell, Emily, and Jorge Salmerón .2009a. ‘‘You’ll ‘‘Get Viagraed:’’ Mexican Men’s Preference for Alternative Erectile Dysfunction Treatment.’’ Social Science and Medicine68:1759-65.
32.
Wentzell, Emily, and Jorge Salmerón .2009b. ‘‘Prevalence of Erectile Dysfunction and its Treatment in a Mexican Population: Distinguishing between Erectile Function Change and Dysfunction.’’ Journal of Men’s Health6:56-62.
