Smearing the Queer

Book excerpt: 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.