The Doping Ban

Abstract

Many different articles have been written about doping in sport, but only relatively recently has there been a significant interest in the effects of doping bans and the rhetoric surrounding them. Several analyses have suggested that doping bans have the effect of promoting a sex and/or gender social order. This article continues the logic of these analyses, but claims that this social order is specifically heterosexual. Butler’s heterosexual matrix is used to critique the subjugation of sexuality in these sex/gender analyses, and to assert that sexuality is implicated in the construction of sex and gender. Following Butler’s understanding of sex, gender and sexuality as mutually dependent on one another this article proceeds to illustrate that female dopers are one category of women who disrupt the heterosexual matrix. It is suggested that the dislike of female dopers is similar to the dislike of lesbians and women who are considered ‘ugly’, for such female athletes fail to meet the criteria of heterosexual femininity. This article argues that doping is an ethical issue that should also consider athletes and non-athletes who are affected by the implications of anti-doping attitudes and bans.