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5. “Keep Life Simple”: Body/Technology Relationships in Racialized Global Contexts
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5 “Keep Life Simple”: Body/Technology Relationships in Racialized Global Contexts After the birth of my second child in 2005, I had my second IUD inserted. This time it was a Mirena, which releases a synthetic progestin, levonorgestrel , from an intrauterine capsule and prevents pregnancy for five years without replacement. The device is one of the most effective contraceptive methods, comparable to surgical sterilization. In clinical trials, the pregnancy rate was less than 1 percent, and fertility returned to normal levels after users discontinued the device. The ParaGard, the other IUD product available in the United States, is a copper-bearing IUD that lasts ten years. Although the two types of devices have similar contraceptive efficacy and reversibility, users of the two different devices typically experience significantly different side effects. Whereas the copper T tends to increase menstrual bleeding and cramping, the levonorgestral-releasing IUD (LNG-IUD) reduces them. Clinical trials found that menstrual bleeding completely stops in 20 percent of Mirena users, a condition known as amenorrhea. Several months after the Mirena insertion, I developed amenorrhea, which I embraced. As someone not particularly attached to menstruation as something that defines my femininity, I greatly appreciated not having to endure the inconveniences and physical discomfort that accompanied the monthly period. As an environmentalist, I was pleased not to have to produce any more tampon and sanitary napkin trash. This was a wonderfully liberating corporeal experience.1 Mirena users who post their experience on the Internet often echo my sentiment. One thirty-five-year-old woman, for instance, wrote, “I LOVE my Mirena. . . . Mirena has made me feel free, not moody, no pain, no period.”2 Internet postings also reveal, however, that a significant number of women are experiencing undesirable side effects such as weight gain, mood swings, and loss of libido. These symptoms were not frequently observed in clinical trials but nevertheless 138 Chapter 5 are real and bothersome for these women.3 Still other postings indicate that many women who are on Mirena after having tried other contraceptive methods are satisfied with the device. Sometimes Internet blogs mention the women’s gynecologists, who are equally enthusiastic about this highly effective contraceptive. These doctors believe the device is safe and free of adverse side effects, and they view the altered menstrual pattern in a favorable light. Mirena is marketed successfully within a pharmaceutical-marketing rubric of “lifestyle drugs.” In other words, when a woman has a positive Mirena experience, the device is functioning as a pharmaceutical product that “promise[s] a refashioning of the material body with transformative life-enhancing results.”4 In recent years, pharmacological therapies claiming to treat baldness, sleep difficulties, excessive weight gain, mild depression , general aging, and sexual performance have become increasingly popular. These medications are not treatments for serious diseases. Rather, they treat or prevent various mild conditions that are often labeled a “problem .” Taking a drug not only resolves the problem, but may also enhance the individual’s life experience and productivity. For instance, low libido is now considered to be a health issue that can be fixed by medication for erectile dysfunction, which could simultaneously contribute to a man’s overall well-being by increasing his sexual appetite, restoring what he perceives to be his manliness, and improving his outlook on life.5 Similarly, decreased productivity at work might be treated with antidepressants, which are presumed to lift one’s mood and help get through tasks more easily.6 Menstrual regulation and suppression medications that have become popular are yet another type of lifestyle drug. Feminist scholars Laura Mamo and Jennifer Fosket show that menstruation is cast as inconvenient, undesirable, and even unnatural in the marketing campaigns of Seasonale, the first oral contraceptive to reduce the number of menstrual periods from twelve to four a year. Various similar products are now being offered as a seemingly natural solution to what is sometimes viewed as a nagging female problem. By changing the material body, lifestyle drugs transform life from the inside out. Direct marketing to consumers of pharmaceutical products communicate this idea by presenting images of people whose lives are positively transformed by the medication. When Mirena appeared on the TV screen around 2007, the commercial only briefly mentioned shorter, lighter periods as a common occurrence in users. Yet because the cultural narrative that renders menstrual suppression [3.141.31.209] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 21:31 GMT) “Keep Life Simple” 139 a positive lifestyle choice had already been solidified with period-reducing...