"How much sex is enough?": coproduction of knowledge, medical-scientific discourses and controversies about Hypersexual Disorder

Abstract

The inquiries about the pathologization/depatologization of so-called deviant sexualities inform the concerns of this project, which takes as its empirical object the controversies involved in the production of scientific knowledge in Brazil about the diagnosis of Hypersexual Disorder. In this sense, it is inserted in the Gender and Sexuality Studies, in the interface with the Anthropology of Science. Its general objective is to analyze the emergence of the Hypersexual Disorder category and its relationship with the fields of biomedicine, science and society. It focuses on the trajectory, controversies and disputes of meanings in relation to the category in the national medical-scientific field, including the international debates on the inclusion/exclusion of Hypersexual Disorder in diagnostic manuals such as DSM and ICD. The project also aims to analyze how conventions about gender and sexuality emerge from biomedical and legal discourses on the subject, as well as the controversies around Hypersexual Disorder involving HIV/AIDS, homosexual and bisexual practices and the notions of risk and vulnerability. The proposed methodology uses qualitative techniques, including: 1) the mapping of networks and actors involved in the controversies; 2) ethnography in production and dissemination spaces of scientific knowledge about the subject; 3) documentary analysis of the scientific and legal, national and international production about the diagnosis; 4) online observation; 5) the conduct of in-depth interviews. (AU)