Abstract
Testosterone Dreams is first and foremost a social history of the public discourse and sentiment surrounding the socio-medicinal use and abuse of testosterone in virtually all walks of life: from an elderly call for youthful rejuvenation, to a laborer's demand for increased work and concentration without the necessity of more sleep, to a societal demand for curing impotence and decreases in libidinal desire, to athletes’ demands for record breaking performances and bodies. Hoberman uses an appropriately sociological lens to analyze both the impact of these changes and the social adjustments that had to occur prior to such a drastic transformation in public opinion, action, acceptance, and denial. ‘Testosterone dreams are the fantasies of hormonal rejuvenation, sexual excitement, and supernormal human performance that have been inspired by testosterone since it was first synthesized in 1935’ (2). Hoberman documents a history to these dreams that is longer than one might think.
The controversy surrounding testosterone is both an incredible illustration as well as a provocation for social variations that have taken place. Hormone therapy in general points to the evolving character of the patient-doctor relationship and the consumerist logic that drives a modern medical marketplace. We see this with the rise in ‘cosmetic’ surgery and the drug market for libidinal enhancement. What will be thought of as ‘normal’ human functioning transforms with advancements in the medical prospects of life. Hoberman illuminates the ‘modern civilization whose definition of human nature is constantly being modified by a panoply of therapies that are constantly changing our sense of what a normal person really is’ (24). Kristin Luker (1984) discussed the intricate way(s) that physicians gained social legitimacy using abortion as an issue to garner social status, support, and legitimacy. Hoberman builds on this to analyze the way(s) that the consumers (the patients) take that power back by demanding marginalized treatments with inadequate ‘scientific’ testing from physicians because of their own individual (rather than scientific) understandings of the costs and benefits.
In Chapter 1, Hoberman presents a summary of the historical development and consumption of testosterone therapies and the processes of health and development that preceded its gradual inception toward medical standardization (a social location from which it is decidedly detached in contemporary society). One such prerequisite for this transformation was the understanding of aging as a disease. It is, of course, a slippery slope to socially define normalcy in such a way that huge proportions of the population would be defined as abnormal were it not for certain supplements, etc. Hoberman understands the cultural contradictions inherent in this transformation. ‘Modern societies that run on the principles of productivity and efficiency cannot credibly oppose techniques that boost the human organism in order to enhance its mental, physical, and sexual performances’ (17). Additionally, aside from the growth in knowledge concerning the physiological elements of testosterone, there was a growing socially recognized right to sexual pleasure for men and women of a diversity of ages. The idea of testosterone therapy may not have been conceivable without the perception of this right.
Chapter 2 is dedicated to explaining the reasons that testosterone therapy and other hormone replacement therapies (HRTs) failed to be more widely adopted methods of medical assistance. Hoberman explains that part of the issue was that this drug was understood as having the power to disrupt a society rigidly structured by gender performances specific to the sexes. For instance, when used to attempt to cure homosexuality, as it was once viewed as a hormone deficiency, it only had the effect of making men desire more sexual activity with men, rather than with women. Hoberman quotes one physician in 1940, ‘If homosexuality is merely the result of an endocrine disturbance, the prospect for its cure must be excellent today’ (97). It turned out to increase sexual desire, but not heterosexual desire.
Additionally, the author analyzes discourse surrounding the diagnosis of women as ‘frigid’ and medical hesitancy to use testosterone despite previous results. Hoberman jokingly discusses the prospect of the medical production of ‘Stepford wives.’ Betty Friedan (1983) argued that ‘frigidity’ and other social ailments might have been due to women's role in society. HRT offered a seemingly harmless solution to this at first by ensuring that wives desired their husbands as much as those men wanted to be desired. However, the control over desire did not have a method of relegating its use to the household and this is what concerned doctors most. Women with greater sex drives were desirable for doctors, so long as they were sleeping with, and only with, their husbands. Again, we see that Hoberman is not necessarily discussing testosterone per se. Rather, testosterone is the tip of the iceberg. Part of what is actually at issue here is the gender order, sexual morality, and the disruption of a sex binary that governs the social order.
Chapters 3 and 4 deal with how commercialization helped to revitalize the diminishing market for testosterone and how testosterone therapy was main-streamed and socially constructed as an acceptable medical cure. The first task was to create a disease in need of a cure. Thus, society came to view aging and diminished sexual proclivity among the elderly as something in need of a cure. ‘Normal sexuality becomes outmoded; hypersexuality becomes the norm’ (145). Is medical science creating drugs to cure social and biological illness, or do the drugs, in very real ways, actually assist in the creation of the illness? However, the creation of this social ‘illness’ also revitalizes divergent and oppositional relations between men and women. ‘The late-twentieth century diagnosis of female sexual dysfunction, for example, did not appear until Viagra had entered public consciousness as a sensational, all-purpose aphrodisiac’ (123). This elaborate system hides the fact that the real issue is not the efficiency and value of a drug-induced cure to the loss of sexual desire, but that we consider this loss sexual dysfunction.
Chapters 5 through 7 chronicle the historical development of testosterone drugs in the Olympics, and particularly, the ‘doping epidemic’ that they have produced in the last half century. Hoberman begins by debunking the cultural myth of the uncorrupted world of sports prior to steroids. ‘The idea that the sports world was pure and honorable before anabolic steroids spread across the world remains an influential misconception. In fact, a long series of attempts to boost athletic performance with various drugs, ultraviolet rays, oxygen tents, and other devices has been underway since the 1890s’ (179). There is a delicate line between what Hoberman refers to as ‘nutrients’ and ‘stimulants;’ ‘performance enabling’ and ‘performance enhancing.’ Physicians find new diagnoses and methods for defining what is ‘normal’ as pathological and hence, in need of medical intervention.
Hoberman finds that the public play a great role here as well, but it is not necessarily what one might have thought. Public opinions about doping in sports is not as opposed as one might be led to believe. ‘[U]niform public condemnation of athletic doping does not exist’ (216). He also problematizes the idea of a single ‘public opinion’ because it disguises the different factions that exist. Similar to Luker's (1984) discussion of the various factions of abortion activists (pro-life and pro-choice), regardless of whether one side actually wins the debate and their view is labeled the public opinion, it is still important to recognize the different points of view and from where they come. Hoberman argues that the public is by and large indifferent to doping practices. Like everything else in the modern world, what is ‘normal’ is not normal any more. It lacks the luster it once had. Thus, many informal globally recognized drug arrangements enabled athletes to continue doping.
While few would deny the prevalence of doping in wrestling and bodybuilding, Hoberman says that it is actually part and parcel of the society in which we live. ‘These drug-dependent spectacles are legal, and very few prosecutors will find that it is in society's interest to trace such performances back to their pharmacological origins’ (277). Hoberman finds the lack of public scrutiny extremely revealing of underlying cultural sentiments. Steroids and steroid use are the products of an age. This book uncovers some of the more covert aspects of public sentiments surrounding their use, abuse, and distribution. It seems that, for Hoberman, the more serious question is not how to rid ourselves of steroids, but rather whether we actually want to live in a society where doping is more rigidly policed? Like it or not, doping has become part of who we are.
The book would have been a more interesting read had it proceeded chronologically. Each chapter dealt with different issues going back and forth in time. It made for a more confusing read because it is difficult to keep all of the ideas in order. Additionally, I thought that using a meta-theory to tie all of the ideas together may have benefited the book greatly. For instance, it may have been interesting to look at the ways society remembers the past regardless of what happened in reality. Hoberman is quick to dismiss ‘public opinion’ as incorrect and tangentially deals with the cultural forces behind these processes of construction. However, the very fact that these public sentiments exist is a topic of interest as well. Olick and Levy (1997) ask, ‘In what different ways can the remembered past constrain the present, and under what circumstances are such constraints transformable?’ (922). The ways in which we collectively remember our past are sometimes more important than the actual ‘truth’ itself. Hoberman seeks to set the record straight but does not as thoroughly discuss the rationale behind its deceit.
Because of this book's breadth and length, it can be used for a variety of purposes. It is an excellent read for a social history of testosterone use and abuse. Additionally, it would be very valuable to scholars and students interested in theories of cultural production and reception. Testosterone Dreams might supplement a course dealing with the sociology of sport as well.