Prescription for Heterosexuality

Download or read book Prescription for Heterosexuality written by Carolyn Herbst Lewis and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010-10-18 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Prescription for Heterosexuality, Carolyn Herbst Lewis explores how medical practitioners, especially family physicians, situated themselves as the guardians of Americans' sexual well-being during the early Cold War years. She argues that many doctors believed that a satisfying sexual relationship with very specific attributes and boundaries was the foundation of a successful marriage, a source of happiness in the American family, and a crucial building block of a secure nation. Drawing on hundreds of articles and editorials in both medical journals and popular and professional literature, Lewis traces how medical professionals affirmed certain heterosexual desires and acts while labeling others as unhealthy or deviant.