Sexology in Portugal: Narratives by Portuguese Sexologists (original) (raw)

2015, The Journal of Sex Research

This article presents the emergence and development of modern sexology in Portugal through the analysis of Portuguese sexologists' narratives, to explore how they commit to a professional identity as sexologists, and to discuss how they integrate their professional role into the vast multidisciplinary field of sexology. In-depth interviews were conducted with 44 key professionals, purposefully recruited to guarantee heterogeneity concerning generation, gender, training, and practice. Content analysis focused on highlighting differences and articulations among the main professionals making up the field. The findings indicate that sexology is not seen as a full-fledged profession but rather as a specialization or a secondary field of action. The sexual medicine perspective is prevalent and more visible among physicians, thus reflecting the gap between psychosocial and biomedical approaches. A close link between clinical work and research and a gap between clinical work and health promotion were found. Despite the multidisciplinary nature of sexology being acknowledged, it is not fully implemented by the experts in the field. However, it is this characteristic that permitted sexology to institutionalize and to legitimate itself as a discourse of truth about sex, in Portugal as in other countries. Although sexology as a specific field of knowledge, a practice, and a profession appeared in the second half of the 19th century (Ariès & Béjin, 1985; Bland & Doan, 1999), the field remains controversial and challenged, as the multidisciplinary nature of sexology strongly contributes to its "outlaw" (Zucker, 2002) and "dirty" character (Irvine, 2014). The field of sexuality produces paradoxical cultural reactions. This led Irvine (2014) to study sexuality research as a form of "dirty work," an occupation that is simultaneously socially necessary and stigmatized, using Hughes's (1958, 1962) dirty work paradox, in which society disavows a type of work while at the same time recognizing it as a crucial form of labor. The constitution of sexuality research as dirty work has implications not only for the researchers who face barriers establishing academic legitimacy; it also affects the broad production of sexual knowledge and sexological practice (Irvine, 2014). Sexology is an umbrella term used to represent the multidisciplinary activities of groups of researchers, clinicians, and educators related to sexuality (Irvine, 2005). However, sexology and sex therapy-and, more recently, sexual medicine-are not practiced all in the same way in different cultures or even in Western culture. Variations in professional practices of sexology relate to national and cultural contexts, training, organization of health services, and professional motivation (Fruhstuck, 2003; Giami, 2012; Kontula, 2011). In this study, the term sexologist is used to describe people with different degrees and levels of training who work as physicians, psychologists, nurses, midwives, therapists, educators, and researchers, in settings that can range from universities to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), health care, hospitals, government entities, and private practice, and who contribute directly or indirectly to the sexology perspective. Many professionals do not recognize themselves as sexologists, and the profession of sexology is still not completely recognized as an autonomous profession by public health authorities in most European countries (Giami, 2012). Sexual science was first developed in Western Europe and was centered in Germany until the Nazi persecution (Haeberle, 1981). In the United States, it was developed by the middle of the 20th century, and it has historically been a domain of stigma and immorality in Western societies