Sexuality and Medicine: Bodies, Practices, Knowledges

Edited by Paul Komesaroff, Philipa Rothfield, John Wiltshire.

“Whenever I go into a house, I will go to help the sick and never with any intention of doing harm or injury. I will not abuse my position to indulge in sexual contacts with the bodies of women or of men, whether they be freemen or slaves.”

At the inception of Western medicine, as this section of the Hippocratic Oath suggests, sexuality was recognised as inexorably inhabiting the clinical encounter. Yet at the same moment that sexuality was recognised, it was also feared, and warned against, proscribed. Such an inhibition about sexuality, at so foundational a moment, has influenced the subsequent history of medicine’s dealings with sex. It is this inhibition that this book, Sexuality and Medicine: Bodies, Practices, Knowledges, is designed to challenge.

First published in 2003, Sexuality and Medicine is made available here open access as a free PDF with the permission of the Editors.