Toxic Emissions: The Role of Semen in GWS Narratives.

Narratives about Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) contain discussions of sex and reproduction and there is a high level of anxiety about these subjects. Although similar to other medically unexplained conditions, GWS has distinctive features. The most salient of these is its contagious nature, with the main vehicle for contamination being semen. GWS sufferers believe their semen to be affected by their participation in the Gulf War. This paper focuses on a number of specific symptoms described by Gulf veterans including: Burning Semen Syndrome, low libido, impotence and birth defects and aims to interpret why certain symptoms became powerful markers of the condition. Furthermore, the paper looks at the meaning conveyed by such symptom reporting. Data were generated from 14 months ethnographic fieldwork in the UK including participant observation, semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Concerns about lack of potency, toxicity and quality suggest that semen itself is a substance in which social concerns are enacted. The paper argues that such a focus on and anxiety about semen suggests that GWS narratives express concerns about masculinity, or, more precisely a loss of masculinity.