Itineraries of Sexology in Peru

Abstract

At a time of increasing re-medicalization of sexuality in the region, where concerns about its social dimensions and the role of culture and structural contexts are becoming less apparent, an exploration of the role played in recent history by other approaches, such as sexology, is particularly relevant. This study intended to assess if, and to what extent, the field of sexology was ever established in Peru. With this goal in mind, the study built a dynamic map of institutional arrangements and academic and clinical practices in Peru that can be linked to that tradition. Document analysis and interviews conducted with key professionals were employed. The history of sexology in Peru is relatively short. Its emergence appears fragmented in the data collected. Its most formal institutional basis, the Peruvian Society of Sexology, was established in 1986, and remained active for 15 years, when the increasing presence of nonmedical professionals challenged medical leadership and produced a medical diaspora. Sexology in Peru faced a number of obstacles to increase its level of professionalization and institutionalization. During the past 25 years, it has proved impossible to find common ground across several diverging points of view to establish a real disciplinary field. This failure may be explained by the limited renovation in leadership that could reunite perspectives across disciplines that are hierarchically positioned in the world of health professions; the failure to establish clear channels of accreditation as sexologists; and most recently, the global decay of sexology as a reference field, vis-à-vis the emergence of alternative concepts such as sexual health and sexual medicine. A theoretical discussion is needed that can formulate, in the Peruvian context, a discourse and a practice that preserve links with the multidisciplinary dimensions of the sexology tradition and at the same time incorporate the diverging perspectives of sexual medicine and sexual health and rights.