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Declining global male fertility rates has generated increased attention on male fertility in recent years. Simultaneously, individualised responsibility for health has been growing. Fertility and lifestyle have therefore become seemingly intertwined.
Esmée Sinéad Hanna and Brendan Gough examine men’s experiences of fertility and lifestyle practices, exploring personal experiences of the role of lifestyle in the quest for conception as well as the broader promotion of ‘lifestyle’ within both clinical and online material as a key aspect for ‘improving’ male fertility. Through the exploration of male fertility and lifestyle factors and their modification we examine the growth of healthism around infertility, the role of neoliberalism within this and how this intersects with masculinity. Using a new notion of liquid masculinity, we explore the fluid nature of societal and personal perspectives on the male infertility experience. In doing so we offer new insights into the now accepted idea that ‘sperm’ is malleable and that fertility controllable through personal choices, despite their being limited scientific evidence for such claims.
Esmée Sinéad Hanna is a Reader in Health and Wellbeing in Society, and member of the Centre for Reproduction Research at De Montfort University. She has published in a wide range of journals, including Qualitative Research, Sociology of Health and Illness and Journal of Health Psychology and has previously published two sole-authored monographs.
Brendan Gough is a Critical Social Psychologist in the Leeds School of Social Sciences at Leeds Beckett University. He is co-founder and co-editor of the journal Qualitative Research in Psychology and is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Social & Personality Psychology Compass. He was awarded a fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2016.
Chapter 1. Introduction: (In) Fertile bodies
Chapter 2. Clinical evidence and guidelines for men experiencing infertility: An umbrella review
Chapter 3. Discourses of fertility and lifestyle change for men online
Chapter 4. Are men modifying their lifestyles to optimise fertility success?
Chapter 5. There’s so much bollocks’: Men navigating lifestyle advice for infertility
Chapter 6. Liquid masculinity: The fluid nature of masculinity in the context of male fertility body projects
Chapter 7. Conclusions