Synopses & Reviews
In this lively and engaging work, Carolyn Lewis explores how medical practitioners, especially family physicians, situated themselves as the guardians of Americans' sexual well-being during the early years of the Cold War. She argues that many doctors believed that a satisfying sexual relationship with very specific attributes and boundaries was the foundation of a successful marriage, a fundamental source of happiness in the American family, and a crucial building block of a secure nation. Drawing on hundreds of articles and editorials in medical journals as well as other popular and professional literature, Lewis traces how medical professionals gave certain heterosexual desires and acts a veritable stamp of approval while labeling others as unhealthy or deviant.
Review
"Delving into issues rarely examined by historians, Carolyn Lewis argues that physicians helped construct the criteria by which healthy heterosexuality was defined and understood in the Cold War era. She brings a keen analytic eye to this fascinating, well-written, and illuminating study."--Elaine Tyler May, author of America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation
Review
"This engaging and well-researched history explores how physicians' advice underwrote postwar gender prescriptions and helped to shape new norms of sex and marriage for Americans. By examining both medical debates and patient norms, Lewis illuminates the interlocking worlds of physicians and those who sought their counsel in an era of experts."--Miriam Reumann, author of American Sexual Character: Sex, Gender, and National Identity in the Kinsey Reports
Synopsis
In Prescription for Heterosexuality, Carolyn Herbst Lewis explores how medical practitioners, especially family physicians, situated themselves as the guardians of Americans' sexual well-being during the early Cold War years. She argues that many doctors believed that a satisfying sexual relationship with very specific attributes and boundaries was the foundation of a successful marriage, a source of happiness in the American family, and a crucial building block of a secure nation. Drawing on hundreds of articles and editorials in both medical journals and popular and professional literature, Lewis traces how medical professionals affirmed certain heterosexual desires and acts while labeling others as unhealthy or deviant.
About the Author
Carolyn Herbst Lewis is assistant professor of history at Louisiana State University.