Coming to Grips With Benign Prostate Enlargement or Prostate Cancer in Contemporary Japan: Readings From a Cancer-Self

Abstract

This article explores how a group of 35 Japanese men comprehend and verbalize the somatic experience embedded in dealing with benign prostate enlargement, or disquiet/discomfort of developing prostate cancer. Grounded in an adaptation of the sexual scripts theorizing, a set of in-depth, semistructured individual interviews were conducted through a LINE-app videocall from 2021 to 2023. Outcomes of interview were analyzed through a conversational approach, and presented by using three axes: the body, gender, and sexuality. An understanding of the Japanese-civilized-self has rendered somatic knowing problematic and pretended ignorance a strategy to deal with conversations about a condition involving the genitals and body waste. The body refers to a cancer-self who copes with ignorance of the prostate’s anatomy and physiology, the-mechanics-of-urine, and medication/treatment side-effects. Gender is concerned with a cancer-self who grapples with an ailment that “emasculates the self,” and the feminization of care as well as infantilization at medical facilities. Sexuality implies a cancer-self who bears scripts related to asexuality, medication/treatments that affect libido and penile erections, and a tarnished sexual reputation as a “heterosexual man” because prostate stimulation has been associate with homosexuality.