Is the Old Psychoanalytic Story Part of the Problem? Commentary on Article by Rheta Keylor and Roberta Apfel

Abstract

This commentary responds to Keylor and Apfel's (this issue) article on male infertility. The authors present a very important article about a subject that is undertheorized. Although they present important research and clinical material describing some men's experiences of infertility, their approach to masculinity is limited and keeps men in a box of phallocentricity that it seems would only add insult to injury for a man struggling with infertility. This commentary presents a brief overview of what fertility treatments typically entail and explores some ways in which cultural constructions of masculinity would be supported and threatened through these treatments. The cultural context of gender in fertility treatments is discussed. Questions about masculinity and fatherhood are raised for further exploration. Keylor and Apfel's descriptions of the ways in which fertility treatments can reenact significant psychoanalytic themes of development are discussed and placed within a cultural context of gender.

Notes

¹Other countries have created laws restricting the numbers of embryos that can be transferred because it is considered physically dangerous and psychologically traumatic for women and men to have to make these decisions.

²As noted earlier in terms of implantation, the United States is the only Western country where fertility specialists operate under “recommendations,” not laws or accepted guidelines (see Franklin, 1997; Franklin and Ragoné, 1998; Inhorn and van Balen, 2002; Spar, 2006; Mundy, 2007). This contributes to the fantasy of limitlessness in U.S. fertility medicine.