Men’s Performance and Image-Enhancing Drug Use as Self-Transformation: Working Out in Makeover Culture

ABSTRACT

This article investigates how men who inject performance and image-enhancing drugs (PIEDs) describe their experiences of embodiment and masculinity, locating that analysis in the context of contemporary ‘makeover culture’ and the imperatives of self-transformation. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews we conducted with 60 men who inject PIEDs in Australia, our analysis suggests there is a pragmatic logic associated with PIED use that challenges much research concerning this population, which tends to pathologise men who use PIEDs as disordered in their relationship to their bodies and cultural norms of masculinity. We unpack how the men interviewed describe everyday practices of doing gender in the context of illicit drug use, the implications in normative understandings of maleness and masculinity, and how PIED consumption practices encouraged particular attention to working on the self. Our findings suggest that drug injecting practices can be understood as forms of self-transformation in makeover culture that have the potential to make new, unexpected possibilities for being in the world, and can inform harm reduction measures, including the de-stigmatisation of drug use more broadly.

KEYWORDS:

• Steroids
• performance and image-enhancing drugs
• drugs
• makeover culture
• masculinity
• gender norms
• care of the self

Acknowledgements

Chief investigators on this ARC-funded project are Suzanne Fraser, David Moore and Kate Seear. Partner investigators are Campbell Aitken and Kay Stanton. Research staff working on the project are Renae Fomiatti, Aaron Hart, J. R. Latham and Emily Lenton. Interviews were conducted by Jeanne Ellard, Renae Fomiatti, Aaron Hart, Emily Lenton, Dean Murphy and Mair Underwood. The project has been based in two institutions over time: The National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University, and The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University. We would like to thank the project’s advisory group and everyone who contributed to this research, especially the 60 men who spoke with us about their experiences using PIEDs.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

J. R. Latham is Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, and Honorary Fellow in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. His research concerns how gender and sexuality figure in the fields of health and medicine, and he has published widely on the experiences of trans and intersex people.

Suzanne Fraser is Director of the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University, and Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Social Research in Health at the University of New South Wales. Her work focuses on drug use, gender and related issues and she has published a range of books and articles in these areas.

Renae Fomiatti is a qualitative researcher at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University. Her research focuses on experiences of drug consumption and the self, the biopolitics of health, drug governance and treatment and stigma and subjectivity.

David Moore is a Professorial Research Fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University, and an Adjunct Professor at the National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University. He has written extensively on the social and cultural contexts of alcohol and other drug use.

Kate Seear is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at Monash University and the Academic Director of Springvale Monash Legal Service. She is also Adjunct Research Fellow at the National Drug Research Institute and has published widely on drug policy, law, gender and the body.

Campbell Aitken is a Senior Research Fellow at the Burnet Institute and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University. His work focuses on the epidemiology of the hepatitis C virus.

ORCID

J. R. Latham http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3705-4577

Suzanne Fraser http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1018-5865

Renae Fomiatti http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6193-9634

David Moore http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5860-3109

Kate Seear http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0886-7069

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by the Australian Research Council (Discovery Project DP170100302). Kate Seear is funded by an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship (DE160100134). The National Drug Research Institute is supported by core funding from the Australian Government under the Drug and Alcohol Program and also receives significant funding from Curtin University.