Idealized standards for muscular, fat-free male bodies may be fuelling the use of SARMs, or selective androgen receptor modulators, unapproved muscle-building drugs that are easily available online.
In the medical culture of the Bugis and Makassar peoples in Indonesia the word koroq
means that the penis is actually shrinking, or retracting, but the Dutch in the 19th-century East Indies did not believe it was real.
shutterstock
Koro is widely believed to be a culturally localised delusion. But a theory that it’s a fight-or-flight reflex might be corroborated by studying traditional healing treatments in Indonesia.
Masculinity is defined by more than just manliness.
Initiates undergoing the traditional passage to manhood in Qunu, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Many either die or get maimed during the winter practice.
Reuters/Siegfried Modola
The practices around the traditional passage to manhood in South Africa are changing and beginning to encompass women as family patterns change. But, there are mixed feelings about the changes.
Ethnic minorities aren’t more likely to be detained or “sectioned” under the Mental Health Act because of institutional racism, according to a new study. A relatively higher number of black and minority…
Spermatorrhoea was said to be ‘the most dire, excruciating and deadly maladies to which the human frame is subject.’
Guillaume Duchenne
MEDICAL HISTORIES - The second instalment in our short series examines how the spermatorrhoea epidemic changed the scope of medicine. Every period arguably invents its own illnesses, medical disorders…
Infant male circumcision violates aspects of international human rights law, which Australia is bound to uphold.
Chris Woods
In an article published recently on this site, “Male circumcision policy ignores research showing benefits”, the authors stated some alleged benefits of infant male circumcision and argued the Royal Australasian…
Circumcising boys in the neonatal period using local anaesthesia maximises benefits and safety.
TheGiantVermin/Flickr
For some time now, all the departments of health in Australia have based their policy on male circumcision on reviews of the scientific literature carried out periodically by the Royal Australasian College…
It’s important men can identify potentially cancerous lumps in their testes.
xddorox
Testicular self-examination is turning men into “ball-watching neurotics” – that’s the view of Keith Hopcroft, a GP from Essex in the United Kingdom. It’s unnecessary, he explained recently in the British…
Men’s pursuit of muscularity, leanness and youthfulness aren’t new.
The Shark
Male beauty and body image receive far less attention in the media and academia than the female body. That’s despite buff, lean and muscular male bodies becoming an increasingly popular features of blockbuster…