Ovulation monitoring and reproductive heterosex: living the conceptive imperative?

Abstract

Using biosensors, or devices that provide biological information to users about their own bodies, to map ovulation and time intercourse is a practice of rising significance in economically privileged countries. Based on an ethnographic study of ovulation biosensing, this paper explores the contradictions between device manufacturers' figurations of reproductive heterosex as a natural and pleasurable experience facilitated by fertility monitoring technology, and heterosexual women users' accounts of the pleasures and difficulties of ovulation monitoring and associated sexual encounters. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies and the concept of 'script', we examine the frameworks of action defined by makers of ovulation biosensors and how these are accepted, refused or remade by users. Within the scientific romance configured by manufacturers, reproductive heterosex emerges as exciting and fun, whilst the hard, 'technical' work of conception is done by ovulation technologies. Yet ovulation monitoring is described by many heterosexual women users as an exciting and yet anxiety-producing practice through which they come to know their bodies differently, often through online discussions with other women. Living a 'conceptive imperative', women engaging with ovulation sensing reconfigure their reproductive embodiment and shift their relationship to male partners in ways that reveal heterosexual 'baby-making' as a complex and nuanced practice worthy of critical engagement.

Spitting images: remaking saliva as a promissory substance

“…Saliva was described as "a mirror of the body" that reflects the body's emotional, hormonal, immunological, and neurological status as well as nutritional influences, and "[g]iven this broad spectrum of interactions and relationships, many diagnostics possibilities are worthy of exploration and evaluation" (Mandel 1993, 3). Since then, a variety of commercial applications have become available using salivary diagnostics, for example, at-home HIV tests (OraQuick), cortisol test kits to detect levels of stress, periodontal disease test (MyPerioPath®) and ovulation microscopes (see Wilkinson et al 2015 for a study of ovulation tracking).…”

Technologies of time: women’s practices of trying to conceive with ovulation biosensing

“…Although the activities of testing or collecting data were not observed in situ, women sometimes presented their basal body temperature monitoring graphs during the interview and described what they considered to be significant moments during the cycle. Discussions about how women make sense of the data they collect are not within the scope of this paper but are an important element of the doctoral study (Wilkinson et al ., 2015; forthcoming).…”

“…This paper in some ways contributes to the pushing of men’s fertilities even further out of focus. However, a paper relating to this study (Wilkinson et al ., 2015) examines men’s involvement in women’s practices of tracking ovulation. In particular, it focuses on their participation (or lack of) in organising reproductive heterosexual intercourse around the time of ovulation in order to make conception work.…”

“…Manufacturers of ovulation biosensing devices often centre their publicity campaigns around women trying to conceive within heterosexual relationships. Their devices, they claim, enable women to detect ovulation and the fertile days, from which they can time heterosexual sexual intercourse and thereby increase their chances of conceiving (Wilkinson et al ., 2015). However, this paper argues that there is more to ovulation biosensing than knowing about ovulation and when to engage in reproductive heterosex.…”

‘Catching Ovulation’: Exploring Women’s Use of Fertility Tracking Apps as a Reproductive Technology

“… 3. Participants had various experiences of sharing, or deciding not to share, their fertility tracking and knowledge with male partners. See the work of Joann Wilkinson et al (2015) for an analysis of how ovulation sensing technologies are involved in producing normative articulations and performances of ‘reproductive heterosex’. …”