"Natural" is Overrated
Ableist AF, too
Hi (No) Wonder-ers,
I’m often asked about “natural” approaches to addressing urological conditions. (“Hey Doc, I don’t like medications, can I take something natural* to help my erections?”)
*In this context, the “something natural” often still involves TAKING something, rather than DOING an effortful life change. I routinely offer natural suggestions to approach ED (sensate focus exercises, sex therapy, smoking/alcohol cessation, sleep hygiene), but patients react unenthusiastically to these as if hoping I’d offer something that’s still a pill… but, like, made of kale or something. All while railing against Big Pharma, as if Big Supplement is some suppressed underdog rather than a predatory multibillion-dollar industry.
We often assume that natural = better and artificial = worse, a fallacy known as the naturalistic fallacy or appeal to nature.
Many associate nature the kind of untouched beauty found in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and think to themselves, “Selves, this looks nice. Natural is great!” Some might extend this sentiment to its inverse: “Anything else is crap.”
The problem with assigning these value judgments and putting "natural" on a pedestal is that many of us, myself included, would be quite dead if left to nature’s whim. Nature may have created the Grand Canyon… but nature also saw it fit to block my left anterior descending (LAD, “the widowmaker”) artery when I was 29. So I hope you’ll forgive me for thinking my artificially-stented, still-beating heart is an upgrade over a heart that would have stopped beating naturally.
The naturalistic fallacy informs many of the value judgments people make about others' bodies and brains. This is why people call breast implants "fake" and use of GLP-1 agonists (e.g. Ozempic) "cheating." Possibly the best take I've heard on the latter came from none other than Jim Gaffigan.
"I'm not playing Major League Baseball, I'm just a fat guy trying to not die." As a fat guy trying to not die, I love this line so very much.
This could just as readily apply to any medical accommodation. Antidepressants and/or therapy can be great for depressed people trying to not die. Gender-affirming care is great for transgender people trying to not die.
Giuliana Grossi
Interventions that aren't "natural" are often important for people who would die a natural death without them.
On a societal level, an emphasis on “natural” and its associated value judgments is an insidious way for able-bodied neurotypical people to retain their unearned privileges and feelings of smug superiority. When able-bodied neurotypical people ignore their good genetic fortune and insist they achieved their health solely through disciplined hard work, this allows them to sanctimoniously dismiss others’ disabilities and neurodivergence as a lack of discipline and willpower. People who view disability and neurodivergence as a lack of "mind over matter" can justify not having to inconvenience themselves by accommodating for anyone dealt a worse genetic hand than theirs ("Why can't they just pull themselves up by their bootstraps?!")
Anyone whose physical or mental health problems can all be solved by "naturally" willing them away lives a charmed life.
I would strongly argue that skills and attributes acquired through creativity, hard work, persistent effort, and resourcefulness are worth more, not less, than those occurring naturally and effortlessly. As someone who stutters, I think often of the late James Earl Jones, his severe stutter, and how much work he had to have done in order to deliver a voice with such perfect gravitas... despite nature having poorly equipped him to do so. If his experience with stuttering is anything like mine, I can imagine he never took even one spoken word for granted, given the amount of practice we need in order to get our words out. I like to think the perspective he brought as someone who wasn't a "natural" inspired the work he did to make his voice one of the most iconic in cinematic history.
It takes tremendous grit to do so much with so little.
While it's wonderful and inspirational that James Earl Jones could make so much out of what little nature gave him, not everyone gets a body, a brain, and a socioeconomic context that allows them to overcome challenges by effort alone. Many put in comparable effort with far less to show for it, at least to casual observers. The kid using nonverbal gestures, existing printed words, and AAC technology deserves praise, love, inclusion, attention, and recognition for their grit - a quality that is tacitly expected of them, yet never asked of a "natural."
“Natural” is an objective, adjectival descriptor. Nothing more, nothing less. To ascribe a value judgment to “natural” is to embrace eugenics, discount the humanity of those nature arbitrarily saw fit to exclude, and invalidate the hard work that disabled and/or neurodivergent people do in order to exist at a level that able-bodied neurotypical people can take for granted. Type 1 diabetics dependent on Banting and Best’s insulin are no less worthy of love and inclusion than those nature gifted the privilege of making their own. Medically and surgically-enhanced erections have merit in that their owners had to subject themselves to awkward urology visits in order to achieve them... hard earned, indeed.
Real and spectacular needn't be natural.
Earned > Given,
Merrit