Wellbeing pharmacy and the
Global Better Sex Survey
Mark Davis
Health Living and Citizenship
Roundtable Meeting, Monash Prato Campus, 25-26
June 2009
Overview
• Introduce Pfizer’s sex surveys and how
these address ‘satisfaction’
• Put Pfizer’s surveys in context of previous
surveys
• Reflect on unorthodox uses of Viagra
• Consider tensions in Pfizer’s use of sexual
satisfaction
Pfizer’s surveys: GSSAB
• Global Study of Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors
• “. . . subjective sexual well-being” (Laumman et
al 2006: 146)
 During the past 12 months, how physically
pleasurable did you find your relationship with your
partner to be?
 During the past 12 months, how emotionally satisfying
did you find your relationship with your partner to be?
Pfizer’s surveys: GBSS
• Global Better Sex Survey, 2005/6
• ‘The GBSS was commissioned to quantify levels
of sexual satisfaction whilst gaining a unique
insight into the unmet sexual needs and
aspirations of couples throughout the world.’
cornerstone-msc.net/GBSS1/gbss_survey.htm
• http://www.menshealth.com.my/ed_11.htm
• www.viagra.com
National sex surveys
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Kinsey, US, 1948 and 1953
‘Little Kinsey’, late 1940s, UK, (Stanley, 1995)
Hite Reports, 1976 & 1981
National Survey of Family Growth, US, 6
surveys between 1973 to 2002/3
• National Health and Social Life Survey, US,
1992
• National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and
Lifestyles, UK, 1990/91 & 2000
• Sex in Australia, 2000/1
Features of Pfizer’s sex surveys
• ‘Not biased like Kinsey’
 Justify themselves through public health
(sexual satisfaction)
 Use random survey methods to ensure
credibility
• Satisfaction (genital sex)
• Privatised
To summarise:
• The Pfizer surveys show what private capital can
do when the state cannot act:
 creative use of method
 traverse the globe, effortlessly and trouble free
 provide unprecedented information
• Appear to have opened up questions of
satisfaction in novel ways
BUT
• Implicitly and explicitly join satisfaction with
Viagra (and therefore privilege sex as
penetration)
Viagra cultures
• Self-prescibers (Fox and Ward, 2006)
• Poly-drug users (Fisher et al, 2006) and
gay men (Mansergh, 2006)
• What can a Viagra body do? (Potts, 2004)
Wellbeing pharmacy
• Pfizer’s sex surveys:
 Eclectic mix of scientific credibility, sexual subjectivity
and private consumption
 Render satisfaction calculable, purified, globalised
 Help establish Viagra orthodoxy and chase out
alterities
• Sexual wellbeing in a pill
 Attractive, necessary and banal
 Is this really better sex?
References
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Fisher, D., Malow, R., Rosenberg, R., Reynolds, G., Farerell, N. and Jaffe,
A. (2006), 'Recreational Viagra use and sexual risk among drug abusing
men', American Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2, 2, 107-114.
Fox, N. and Ward, K. (2006) 'Health identities: from expert patient to
resisting consumer', health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study
of Health, Illness and Medicine, 10, 4, 461-479.
Laumman et al 2006, Archives of Sexual Behaviour, 35, 2: 146.
Mansergh, G., Shouse, R., Marks, G., Guzman, R., Rader, M., Buchbinder,
S. and Colfax, G. (2006), 'Methamphetamine and sildenafil (Viagra) use are
linked to unprotected receptive and insertive anal sex, respectively, in a
sample of men who have sex with men', Sexually Transmitted Infections,
82, 131-134.
Potts, A. (2004), 'Deleuze on Viagra (Or, What can a 'Viagra-body' do?)',
Body & Society, 10, 1, 17-36.
Reumann, M. (2005), American sexual character: Sex, gender and national
identity in the Kinsey Reports, (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Stanley, L. (1995) Sex surveyed 1949-1994: From Mass-Observation's
'Little Kinsey' to the National Survey and the Hite Reports (London: Taylor &
Francis)