ABSTRACT
What are the advantages and disadvantages of locating women's sexuality under the rubric of health? Designating sexuality a matter of "health" has important ramifications in terms of appropriate authorities, institutional control, language and imagery, methods for study, and, most important, people's views of its place in their own lives (Featherstone, Flepworth, and Turner, 1991; Conrad and Kern, 1981). In this context, it is important to note that "health" is not dictated by biology any more than "sexuality" is dictated by biology (Scott and Morgan, 1993); they are both matters of language and culture, sets of biological potentials expressed and constructed very differently in different sociohistorical situations. Diseases and illnesses are matters of classification, and they change as social values about "normal" aspects of age, fitness, and gender change. Yes, we all are born and die, and in that sense, biology dominates, but how we use and experience our bodily potentials in between those bookends is no more dictated by biology than is the style of our hats.
