Embodiment Perspective And Testicular Cancer Essay

This essay aims to critically discuss and to analyse the link between the embodiment perspective and testicular cancer, as well as its relational importance to sexual dysfunction, as well as the interrelated nature of the two case studies, as well as providing a parallel to the South African context in which we find ourselves.

Embodiment is defined as : “being specifically concerned with the lived experience of one's own body. This lived experience refers specifically to the way that individuals negotiate their everyday lives via the utility of their bodies, and how they mediate, interpret and interact with their physical and social environments.” (Jaye. 2004. pg 41). The embodiment perspective divides embodiment itself into four distinct

On a superficial level, it serves as an intermediate position, somewhere between the physiological and social bodies. However, upon more detailed considerations, it can be shown that the phenomenological realm of bodily knowledge, while linked to those two categories is more than the sum of its parts, as it provides the individual with a method of viewing themselves. This realm of knowledge has close ties to the psychosocial environmental model (PSE model), which, in conjunction with the social perspective encapsulate the individual in their socio-political and spatio-temporal contexts, with a focus on their socio-economic environment. This position is constantly shifting, and is determined by the individual's interpretation of themselves in a greater

It is also sometimes also referred to as impotence.”(Healthline, 2014, n.p.). The social implications of this on an individual with regards to disembodiment are evident in the phallocentric society that can be summarised in the idea that“the dominant model of male sexuality relies on notions of omnipresent sexual desire”(Fishman. J.R. & Mamo. L., 2002, pg 184), drawing our attention to the 'ideal male'; one who permanently desires sexual relations. However, those individuals who agree with this societal interpretation of the male sexuality and suffer from erectile dysfunction will be afflicted phenomenologically, as those who have recovered from and/or are afflicted physiologically by testicular cancer often suffer from a reduced desire for sexual relations, due to reduced testosterone production, in addition to the possible factor that they themselves may not believe they are 'whole' sexual beings due to possession of only a single functional testicle. However, those affected solely by ED will too be negatively impacted as they will believe themselves as less than masculine, which would be akin to weakness. On the clinical level of the embodiment perspective, ED can be treated with the use of Viagra, which is “Accepted by consumers as a 'magic bullet' that will revolutionise sexual relations by restoring normal function”