Redefining Men's Sexuality, Resignifying Male Bodies: The Argentine Law of Anti‐Venereal Prophylaxis, 1936

Abstract

By analysing governmental, legal and medical sources, this article examines Argentina's first national law of anti‐venereal prophylaxis enacted in 1936. It argues that two aspects of the law, the abolition of legalised prostitution and the mandatory prenuptial medical exam and certificate for men, especially signalled a shift in the state's concern for men's sexuality. The essay demonstrates that this shift was based on the legal and medical recognition of men's reproductive role, its impact on the health of the family and the biological destiny of the nation, and the consideration of the male body as a carrier of venereal diseases and an agent of contagion. This interest in men's sexuality was also the result of the limits the state confronted in its attempts to target women. The law imposed new controls over men because the medical surveillance of prostitutes had proved to be a sanitary failure, and the medical examination and certificate for single women was rejected since it went against beliefs regarding female purity and virginity. This article shows how, under the influence of eugenics, the state turned to the sanitary surveillance of men to prevent venereal contagion and to assure healthy procreation by assuming a new interventionist and paternalist role as the guarantor of public health, the promoter of the hygienic family, and the entity responsible for the protection of wives and children through the control of the male body.