Talking about bodies online: Viagra, YouTube , and the politics of public(ized) sexualities.

The development of Viagra in the late 1990s ushered in a new age of conversation about sex and sexuality, as men's bodily abilities were put on display for all to discuss. In 2005, the video-sharing technologyYouTubewas launched. Taken together, these technological innovations – both biomedical and representational – have produced debate around sex, sexualized and gendered bodies, and sexual health. This article interrogates Viagra-related representations posted onYouTubeand analyzes sexuopharmaceuticals as a set of intertextualities that create space for both normative discoursesandsocial critiques. Three analytic themes illustrate how Viagra-relatedYouTubevideos (1) reinforce a regime of self-care within a wider context of individualized responsibility for one's sexual health, (2) highlight the values attached to the pharmasexed gendered body for men and women in the age of Viagra, and (3) provide disruptions, in the form of criticism, to the assumption that healthy bodies and relationships need pharmasexual enhancement. The article concludes by suggesting that social networking sites such asYouTubeare managed public spaces through which one can interrogate the intertextualities that link discourses related to bodies and sexual health to the virtual and material spaces of everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]