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Neoliberal Parenting, Future Sexual Citizens, and Vaccines Against Sexual Risk

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Abstract

Public health systems in the USA and elsewhere recommend vaccination for children from birth through college. Some vaccines target diseases that are easily spread through casual contact, others—like those against hepatitis B and the human papilloma virus (HPV)—target infections spread though more intimate contact, including the exchange of bodily fluids during sexual activity. Although vaccination is very safe, it is in fact a medical intervention into the body that carries some minute risk and that requires individuals or parents to consent. As such, vaccines make for an exciting case through which to understand meanings of health, disease, sexuality, and choice in the context of neoliberalism. Using qualitative data from parents, pediatricians, and attorneys from the vaccine injury compensation system, this article first explores parents’ perceptions of these two vaccines for their children, beliefs about their children’s future sexual selves, and their goals to raise children into the kinds of sexual citizens they desire them to be. Second, the parents’ views are placed in dialogue with pediatricians’ experiences of working with parents to gain trust in the HPV vaccine, as well as barriers to providing care to teens when they become sexually active. Finally, implications for policy are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

Research was funded in part by an intramural grant from the University of Denver.

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  1. University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Jennifer A. Reich

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  1. Jennifer A. Reich
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Correspondence to Jennifer A. Reich.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Reich, J.A. Neoliberal Parenting, Future Sexual Citizens, and Vaccines Against Sexual Risk. Sex Res Soc Policy 13, 341–355 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-016-0227-z

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