Abstract
Objective
To analyze masculinity meanings during penile cancer experience and its treatments.
Methods
Qualitative approach supported in the theoretical framework of medical anthropology and masculinities, with the use of the narrative method. We interviewed in-depth 18 men with penile cancer in a referential Urologic Oncology hospital from the state of São Paulo. Each participant was interviewed on average three times, with a structured script, being the interviews audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed according to the inductive thematic analysis.
Results
Six patients were submitted to the partial penectomy and 12 to the total penectomy. Regarding the marital status, six were widowers, two single, three divorced, and 11 married, with an average age of 54 years old. The penis extirpation fostered significant change in the way men performed their masculinities, even the hegemonic. Thus, this experience allowed them to reinterpret their health conditions to identify other hegemonic elements that sustained their masculine images. For a few, it was possible to represent a full man however, others considered themselves half-men.
Conclusion
The illness broke the participant’s biographic flow because, before penile cancer, the hegemony represented them as masculines, however, after the penectomy, they have lost an organ that is socially related to attributes such as strength, power, work, and virility, situation that brought them the necessity to reinterpret being masculine in their culture. To promote integrality of care to man the nursing must consider that masculinities interfere in the process of health and disease.
Penile neoplasms; Penis/surgery; Anthropology, medical; Masculinity; Men’s health; Oncology nursing
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