Beginning with 2 early key meetings in New York City in 1978 and Monaco in 1980 on sexual medicine in men, the third meeting held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1982 led to the formation of the International Society for Impotence Research (ISIR), later to eventually become the International Society for Sexual Medicine (ISSM). The key early leaders were Adrian Zorgniotti, a urologist from the United States, Gorm Wagner, a sexologist from Denmark, and Vaclav Michal, a vascular surgeon from Czechoslovakia.^1,2

Milestone 1 occurred when 2 key people, Gorm Wagner and William (Bill) Furlow, a urologist from the United States, decided there was a need to share the new scientific findings occurring in this field of male sexual dysfunction—not just at the biennial meetings of the fledgling society, but also in a formal peer-reviewed journal format. Another function of the journal was to publish summaries and abstracts of other scientific meetings in the realm of sexual medicine. The first issue of the journal, titled International Journal of Impotence Research (IJIR) appeared in August of 1989 with 3 issues in that volume. The 2 individuals named above served as the first editors. The journal was owned by the publisher Smith-Gordon and Company and printed in London. At first the journal consisted of 4 issues per year. Details of the scope of the early articles appearing in IJIR can be found in an extensive comprehensive history of the publications and other communication methods recently published in one of the families of journals of ISSM, Sexual Medicine Reviews.³

Arnold Melman, another urologist from the United States, replaced Bill Furlow as co-editor-in-chief along with Gorm Wagner in 1993 with volume 5 of the early journal. In the year 1995 the journal was sold to Stockton Press, and volume 8 the first published by the new group. In volume 11 in 1999 the number of issues was increased to 6 per year. In 2000 Nature Publication Group, a division of McMillan Publishers, took over ownership of the journal. In 2003 a new editor was chosen after interviewing several candidates. The Publication Committee recommended Irwin Goldstein, a urologist from Boston, as the new editor-in-chief of IJIR. He was appointed to that position by the executive board of ISIR. For the first time, a budget for the editorial office was included in the contract with the publisher.

Figure. Representative covers of the journals of ISSM.

Milestone 2 came with a major change occurring in 2004, at which time the publication committee and the executive board of the International Society for Sexual and Impotence Research (ISSIR) decided to become owners of the journal with a contract with a publisher producing the product. An attempt to purchase IJIR from Nature Publication was rejected. After interviewing 3 companies interested in such a partnership, in Amsterdam in March 2004 Blackwell Publishing was chosen as the partner by the executive board of ISIR and the first issue was published in July 2004 under the title, Journal of Sexual Medicine (JSM). All the editorial board resigned from IJIR and became the editorial team for the society-owned journal. In addition, the 5 regional sexual medicine societies adopted JSM as their official journal. (Similarly, the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health adopted it as their official journal in 2007.) The journal was published in 6 issues per year, increasing to a monthly publication in 2008. In 2015 a new editorial team took over the journal with John Mulhall, urologist from New York City, selected as editor-in-chief. Publisher affiliations have included Wiley/Blackwell, Wiley and, currently, Elsevier.

Milestone 3 occurred in 2012, when ISSM and its publication committee decided, along with the publisher Wiley, to help curtail the size of JSM by spinning off 2 sister journals, Sexual Medicine Reviews and Sexual Medicine Open Access, in 2013. The page number of JSM was set to be 3,200 per year with an adoption of an increase in rejection rate. Sexual Medicine Reviews’ aim would be to highlight exceptional science and analysis within the field of sexual medicine by an entirely commissioned peer-reviewed content consisting of 4 issues per year. Culley Carson, a urologist from the United States, served as the first editor-in-chief, and the current editor-in-chief is Irwin Goldstein, appointed in 2014. Open Access was to be online only and included a publication fee that was deeply discounted for those from developing nations and significantly reduced for members of ISSM. Its contents would allow for rapid publication and publication of articles more limited to regional or less general audiences. The first editor-in-chief was Alan Shindel, a urologist from the United States, followed by Kwangsung Park, a urologist from Korea in 2015. Currently the editor is again Alan Shindel, reappointed in 2020. An online video journal was started in 2013, under industrial sponsorship. The journal is titled, Video Journal of Prosthetic Urology and has been under 2 editors-in-chief, Steve Wilson from 2013-2019 and Rafael Carrion since 2020, both urologists from the United States. See the table and figure for a list of editors-in-chief of the journals of ISSM and cover representations over the years.

ISSM strives to be the leader for publishing in the field of sexual medicine through its family of journals. This effort has led to publication of major breakthroughs in the field and has expanded over the years to include all aspects of sexual medicine in all genders. As seen from the above paragraphs, urologists have played a major role in these journal efforts.