Medicalization is the
process by which doctors assert their authority over a sphere of life
previously overseen by guardians of morality. In the 19th Century,
doctors, especially psychiatrists, asserted that sex fell within their
domain with both silly and tragic results. Some American doctors, for
example, employed vibrators to relieve "congestion" in their
female patients' sexual organs, a condition they found frequently.
The treatment induced orgasm in the affected patients, and some returned
often for relief from their "congestive" symptoms.
For homosexuals, though,
the results of medicalization were less pleasant. At first, men like
Karl Ulrichs welcomed medical
commentary about same sex eroticism because they hoped that an objective
study would free them from their status as
immoral pariahs subject to prosecution. Instead, doctors redefined same-sex eroticism as
a mental disease in need of treatment.
