IT'S ALMOST MORE NATURAL THAN THE REAL THING
What is the Body-Mind?
What is the Natural and the Normal?
Welcome! Here, we do not just restore your body to its natural state, but rather to its normal state as well. As discussed by activist and writer Eli Claire in Promise of Cure, “sometimes normal is attached to natural.” (1) Yet, here we believe the natural is not only occasionally attached to normality, but defined by the normal. What society deems as normal constructs what is believed to be natural. For example, since it is considered normal for a woman to get her period once a month, that is how society believes a female body should naturally act. If her body acts differently, something must be wrong with her that needs to be corrected through the prescription of hormonal birth control or another treatment. Thus, “being natural” is not being without technology, without artificiality. Being natural is being able to manipulate your body to fit society's norms.
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But how do we know when a body is truly normal again? When is it cured? For a body to be normal and “cured” of disease and difference, its body-mind must be in sync. To be “cured” of gender dysphoria and be “normal”, transgender people must transition through hormone therapy and surgery to reunite their body-mind. To behave like “real” men, men with erectile dysfunction must use Viagra to match their body’s ability to the sexual prowess of their minds. Thus, through medicines, treatments, and cures, “we can control and reshape our body-minds; restore them to some longed-for, imagined, or former state of being” and thus be normal and natural once more. (2) Just take a pill and your body will function like everyone else's, as your brain wants it to, like it is supposed to. It’s almost more natural than the real thing.
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Disclaimer: Sexuality and gender are both spectrums. However, on this site, we talk about sex and gender as they are portrayed by normative society and by the original advertisements of these products. Sex is often viewed primarily as heterosexual sex, while gender is often thought to be a binary comprised of only cisgender men and women. Not only women use birth control and not only men use Viagra. However, these products operate under and help to uphold these hetero and cis normative conceptions of sex and gender. Thus, we employ the same language and ideology.
Footnotes:
1) Claire, Eli. “Promise of Cure” pp. in Brilliant Imperfections: Grappling with Cure. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017, 173
2) Claire, "Promise of Cure", 179