The medical body : women's experiences of sexual embodiment across the cancer illness trajectory

This study examined women's experiences of sexual embodiment across the cancer illness trajectory. We conducted a thematic decomposition of transcripts from interviews with 16 women (aged 20–71 years) across cancer diagnoses. “The Medical Body” was identified as a main theme. In a dominant narrative, women positioned their bodies as “object” upon contact with the medical system with ongoing problematic sexual subjectivity. In a counternarrative some women constructed their bodies as “subject” during treatment with more positive implications for sexual subjectivity. Findings suggest women's sexual subjectivity is negotiated around institutional discourse and the lived constraints of women's bodies with cancer.