Subtitle The Bodily Imaginaries of Female Genital Pain
Publisher State University of New York Press
EAN/ISBN 978-1438458861
Release Date 2016-07-02
Author(s) Christine Labuski
Summary How does a woman describe a part of her body that much of society teaches her to never discuss? It Hurts Down Thereanalyzes the largest known set of qualitative research data about vulvar pain conditions. It tells the story of one hundred women who struggled with this dilemma as they sought treatment for chronic and unexplained vulvar pain. Christine Labuski argues that the medical condition of vulvar pain cannot be adequately understood without exposing and interrogating cultural attitudes about female genitalia. The author’s dual positioning as cultural anthropologist and former nurse practitioner strengthens her argument that discourses about “healthy” vulvas naturalize and reproduce heteronormative associations between genitalia, sex, and gender.