Abstract
After attending meetings of a prostate cancer support group for three years, I considered the ways group members talked about sex and sexuality. I reviewed extant research on the disease and its effects on sexual function, along with relevant work on sexuality in general. In my role as a participant-observer at the group meetings, I noted the amount and prevalence of talk about sex in the survivors’ conversations about prostate cancer. I investigated the survivors’ efforts to contest and revise the definition of sex that they inferred from society at large—a definition that limits “real” sexual activity to spontaneous acts of penile-vaginal penetration. Such a definition also denounced anything else as phony at worst, and incomplete at best. Consequently, the meetings illustrated the dissonance between group members’ prior expectations, beliefs, and experiences of sexuality and a new set of behaviors that could constitute sexuality. My observations also revealed the significance of support group facilitators in generating talk about sexuality.
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I thank Professors Christy M. Ponticelli and Marsha L. Vanderford for the constructive critiques and encouragement that facilitated the evolution of this article.
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Arrington, M.I. Sexuality, society, and senior citizens: An analysis of sex talk among prostate cancer support group members. Sex Cult 4, 45–74 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-000-1004-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-000-1004-x