Talk:Medicalisation of sexuality

Medical authority
The first sentence is supposed to "introduce the topic, and tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is... in plain English." Currently, it defines it in terms of medical authority, which is neither linked nor explained, and if linked wouldn't help because we have no such article. So in fact, the subject of the article is not really defined. Mathglot (talk) 18:27, 25 December 2023 (UTC)


 * "medical authority" is not a technical term and it would be inappropriate to have its own article. It can literally be read as, "the authority of medicine". A natural question that follows is, "what fields/subfields, groups and individuals constitute 'medicine' in this context?". This is immediately explained in the following sentence by saying, "which fields contribute/cause this?" and the third sentence says "which fields has this also affected?". And the body of the text describes individual organisations and individuals in more detail, as I think it would be undue weight to pull any of them to the lead.
 * In the process of trying to come up with a short introduction for what I consider a broad concept article, I reviewed medicalisation has been defined as:
 * : "a process of conceptualizing, defining, and treating non-medical issues as medical problems"
 * : "Something such as HIV becomes a problem primarily ‘defined in medical terms, described using medical language, understood through the adoption of a medical framework, or “treated” with medical intervention"
 * "a process whereby the ontology of an idea shifts from mere concept to real manifestation"
 * (There are many more sources with their own definitions, I just picked three to list here. I had to read a lot of papers and a couple of books to write this article.)
 * About defining the medicalisation of sexuality:
 * explicitly [selecting] particular elements of men's sexual and reproductive potential as medically normal (just-right erection, just-right ejaculation and orgasm, just-right desire frequency and object), and [promoting] them as natural, universal, and sufficient for proper sexual conduct and experience."
 * "The study of “medicalization of sexuality”, as a system of polarized representations, must be based on a socio-historical analysis of the field of sexuality and the care of which it is the object in the Western world. ... Georges Lanteri Laura has approached this question from the angle of “the medical appropriation of sexuality” ... Peter Conrad has defined “medicalization as a process by which everyday life problems come to be defined as medical problems, most often in terms of diseases or disorders” ... Overall, the medicalization of sexuality is, thus, thought to be the result of a relatively complex historical and sociological process that does not consist in the simple medical appropriation of the natural phenomenon of sexuality. " (this source is the most recent and most detailed analysis of different definitions I could find)
 * "The exercise of medical authority over sexual behaviour has a long history."
 * The only way I can see to adequately summarise all of these is to give a broad definition which I think the last citation provides. It should be clear from these citations alone that there are many variations in definitions, and most of them are rather technical. Although the second last one is newer, published in 2023, and describes more nuance to the concept from a wider variety of authors, it is also much more technical and in my understanding all of the variations in definition are subsumed in the more broad one. I also didn't want to citekill the lead, although maybe there is a consise way of summarising all the definitions in an explanatory footnote. Darcyisvery cute (talk) 01:41, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I think this sort of title falls under MOS:AVOIDBOLD. I would give Enlargement of NATO as an example of a article about a long-term process which foes not have a bolded title mention in lead Mach61 (talk) 05:18, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Mach61 changes
I understand that has tried cleaning up in effort to get the DYK approved, but what I am seeing in the edit history is indiscriminate sourced and unsourced content removal. I am sorry to of not been editing for a while, but I do feel disheartened seeing the edits that have been made in the meantime. Quoting WP:V, Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. For most or all of the unsourced content removal there were supporting citations nearby which could have been checked which support the claim. Going over each issue individually, comparing the current revision to as a baseline:

- While it is fine to remove the WHO quote, it is not controversial at all and can be easily reattributed. A WHO definition can be sourced directly to the WHO, or to one of several secondary sources. About the source itself, I see now the journal shows up on Bealls list. Even with that aside it wasn't a strong source for the article, more supporting the other sources. The only other claim it was used to support was in the lead, It has affected sexology and sexual and reproductive health activism through legislation, funding and lobbying, and is also historically related to activism for sexual and reproductive rights.. This statement is further discussed in line with MOS:LEADNO in the history section. This review article, which is the first result on a google scholar search for "world health organisation sexual health", is a high quality source for the mind-body dualism section definitions, it could also be expanded with this source.

- In the DYK nom that wrote: the removed bit on the first paragraph, viagra motivating FSD research and DSM influence were uncited not due to lack of sources but to avoid citespam. Per WP:V, I didn't expect these claims to be challenged. Not every sentence needs a citation and I didn't consider the claims controversial. The supporting citation (Štulhofer 2015) is directly adjacent: Approved in 1998, Viagra® (sildenafil) became an instant bestseller and the prime treatment for erectile dysfunction (Rowland 2007). Similar drugs soon followed. The commercial success of sexual drugs for men prompted research into female sexual pharmacotherapy. The BusinessWeek citation Mach61 added is not reliable for its claim as it was published only one month after Viagra released, and it is not a reliable source for medical claims.

- Regarding the claim Blanchard's theories were influential on the development of the DSM-3, DSM-4 and DSM-5, I was under the impression this is well known information. But here is a source: Classification systems based on sexual orientation have served as typologies or specifiers for the diagnoses of transsexualism and GID in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM; APA, 1980, 1987, 1994, 2000), ever since these diagnoses entered the DSM in 1980. You can also see, as Blanchard is the person to coin the term autogynephilia which was directly adopted in the DSM, both of these sources cover the DSM-3 to 5 in detail.

- Regarding the mind-body dualism section that was removed by Mach61, the (Leonore 1996) citation is a good one and I think the section should be restored. I assume you read the source in your thorough search, and the source writes: Numerous attempts have been made by psychologists and sexologists to challenge the mind-body split when it comes to sexuality. "It is naive to classify a sexual problem as either organic or nonorganic," wrote Wincze in 1982 (p. 257), and probably someone or other every 6 months since. One such example of many perennial sources discussing mind-body dualism in medicalisation is (Štulhofer 2015), citation 1 in the article. The Leonore 1996 citation is particularly strong because the author did a followup article 14 years later (Leonore 2010). This person also has a Wikipedia article Leonore Tiefer. Besides that, I don't understand your reasoning "A section one source does not make" to delete it, as I don't think this reasoning is based in P&Gs - there are plenty of situations I've come across where a single source is sufficient for small sections, especially when it is a review article.

- Regarding the definition of sexuality, if you read the original text closely, I was not trying to define sexuality: Sexuality is practiced and articulated in feelings, desires, beliefs, behaviors, fantasies, attitudes, practices, and relationships. Other factors to contributing to human sexuality include substance use affects sexual risk taking, and the proliferation of digital aspects to sexuality, such as internet pornography, cybersex and sexting. This is supported by the source. Instead, I am summarising what relevant behaviors and factors are medicalised - the broad and nonspecific definition that Mach61 replaced it with since it "seems weird" has little encyclopedic value in context by comparison. Per MOS:LEADNO, Significant information should not appear in the lead, apart from basic facts, if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although not everything in the lead must be repeated in the body of the text. Exceptions include specific facts such as quotations, examples, birth dates, taxonomic names, case numbers, and titles. This admonition should not be taken as a reason to exclude information from the lead, but rather to harmonize coverage in the lead with material in the body of the article. (emphasis added) While I know cyber elements are not covered in body, it provides context and the potential for expansion.

- Contrary to what Sammi Brie says, I don't think there was close paraphrasing to begin with (this was the revision before Mach61's changes - Medicalisation of sexuality | Earwig's Copyvio Detector). I assume this is referring to the transgender section - WP:LIMITED applies to the terms GID, GIDC, AMAB, AFAB, and those were the only hits on earwig. Further, Mach61's edits to the section is simply close parapharasing of what I wrote originally - it wouldn't fix an issue if there was one. When I wrote the article I even passed it through earwig myself to be sure there was no issue.

Darcyisvery cute (talk) 00:29, 22 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Darcyisverycute Just letting you know I have read this and will formulate a response in a day or two. Sorry if I have been insufficiently communacative in the past. Cheers, Mach61 (talk) 03:34, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Darcyisverycute In order:
 * I have no strong feelings one way or another about the WHO quote
 * I'm fine with you replacing it, but the claim that Viagra motivated research isn't biomedical, making BusinessWeek a usable source
 * You're right, I missed that, feel free to restore the section
 * This is the tough one. I probably wasted an excess of two hours trying to find a source for this, but no one source explicitly verified these exact words in this order, such that no WP:OR was necessary. Even the Lawrence 2017 paper you just shared doesn't technically mention the DSM III. In hindsight I could have strung up multiple sources to do the job.
 * Again, no strong opinions on the lead
 * More generally, on your annoyance on how I treated sentences without a citation at the end, I'm reminded of two quotes left on the talk page of Likely to be challenged, which are that unlikely challenges occur all the time… they are actually quite likely and that subject matter experts are really BAD at determining how likely it is that a challenge will be made. With that being said, I think the reason I struggled so much with this article is that I'm used to finding sources for clearly-defined subjects, such as individual people, not more complicated cross-categories like this article. I'm sorry for any mistakes I made. Cheers, Mach61 (talk) 06:48, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the timely response and letting me know you noticed my message too. (Sorry for not being so timely, but I did notice.) I will try restoring 1,2,3,5. For 4, I can see why adding a list of "these are factors which influence sexuality" - if not explicitly listed by a source - is plausible synthesis, in that case it may be best for the sentence Sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. to be just removed from the lead (perhaps also bluelinking the word "sexuality" elsewhere in the lead) as the article doesn't discuss definitions of sexuality in the body and the sentence alone doesn't add much. I can understand the appeal for editing BLP articles by comparison and agree it can be more time consuming to work with broad concept articles, especially when sources disagree slightly on definitions in topics like sociology and psychology. Regarding "likely to be challenged", I am completely fine with adding citations next to challenged statements, and concur that relatively speaking, I'm a poor estimate of what might be challenged. Darcyisvery cute (talk) 05:50, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Darcyisverycute, I think you misunderstood, 4 is referring to the statement Blanchard's ideas influenced the DSM Mach61 (talk) 21:13, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mach61 Ahh... Sorry... that's what I get for writing from a phone in hospital. Needless to say it'll take me a while to catch up, I've had a lot of personal things going on. I can see there are a few minor changes since then and one CN tag, I will make the changes we discussed/agreed on first, then after that I'll have another look at point (4) and have a look at its sources. Might take me a couple more weeks though. Darcyisvery cute (talk) 02:56, 25 April 2024 (UTC)