Quantifying the sexual and reproductive self

I have just had an article accepted for publication in the journal Culture, Health & Sexuality, to be published in a special issue on medical and health technologies. The article looks at mobile smartphone apps for self-tracking and quantifying sexual and reproductive functions and activities. A pre-print version is available here.

This is the abstract for the article:

Digital health technologies are playing an increasingly important role in healthcare, health education and voluntary self-surveillance, self-quantification and self-care practices. This article presents a critical analysis of one form of these technologies: mobile apps used to self-track features of users’ sexual and reproductive activities and functions. After a review of the content of such apps available in the Apple App Store and Google Play store, some of their sociocultural, ethical and political implications are discussed. These include the role played by these apps in participatory surveillance, their configuration of sexuality and reproduction, the valorising of the quantification of the body in the context of neoliberalism and self-responsibility and issues concerning privacy, data security and the use of the data collected by these apps. It is contended that the apps represent sexuality and reproduction in certain defined and limited ways that work to perpetuate normative stereotypes and assumptions about women and men as sexual and reproductive subjects. Furthermore there are significant ethical and privacy implications emerging from the use of these apps and the data they produce. The article ends with suggestions concerning ‘queering’ such technologies in response to these issues.

Update : This article has now been published – details here.