Smearing the Queer: Medical Bias in the Health Care of Gay Men

By Michael Scarce

Book Overview

Discover how gay men's health care can be improved Smearing the Queer: Medical Bias in the Health Care of Gay Men explores how social prejudices embedded in scientific research and practice often act as a detriment to gay men's health. This book provides an agenda for addressing heterosexism in the health sciences and in medical care while broadening approaches to gay male wellness beyond the limited scope of HIV infection. This groundbreaking book explore a number of neglected concerns affecting the sexual health of gay men, calling for the recognition of their scientific, political, and cultural significance. In Smearing the Queer, gay men, HIV prevention workers, health care providers, mental health professionals, policymakers, researchers, and instructors in related fields will appreciate the in-depth examination of such issues as: research and development on rectal microbicides why many gay men should be receiving periodic anal Pap smears to screen for anorectal cancer an in-depth critique of the problematic diagnosis of "Gay Bowel Syndrome" gay men's use of the Reality Female Condom for anal sex Viagara's impact on gay men's sexual cultures, erectile dysfunction, and recreational drug use a broad-based advocacy agenda for improving relations between gay men and the health sciences the politics surrounding gay men's restricted access to new and prospective safer sex technologies Smearing the Queer challenges heterosexist bias within the health care delivery and health sciences research and calls for the development of public policy initiatives that address gay men's wellness in more sophisticated and complex ways. This is the only publication that provides in-depth social, cultural, and political analysis of the topics of Gay Bowel Syndrome, gay men's use of the female condom, rectal microbicides, and anal Pap smears while examining the social forces that direct scientific research under the guise of objectivity.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560239263
• ISBN13: 9781560239260
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A vital examination of the failure of healthcare for gay men

Scarce's book resonates deeply as a gay man who consistently finds himself on the short end of the cultural, religious, governmental, and medical sticks. From anal cancer to rectal microbicides to the atypical inclusion of poetry in a medical tome, this book is unique and important. Without Michael Scarce and the work he has uncovered, gay men would have little enlightenment about male on male rape, barebacking, anal pap smears, and the profound discovery of the heterosexual copulative disease. Buy this book. Of course, I haven't bought it yet...I'm still waiting on my free copy.