"'Restless Vagina Syndrome': Big Pharma's Newest Fake Disease" by
Terry J. Allen discusses the attempt to medicalize women's sexuality as if we were men with faulty functioning who need fixing. Allen, senior editor of
In These Times, writes,
It’s not your fault, ladies (and certainly not your partner’s), that you don’t orgasm every time you have intercourse, or that you lack the libido of a 17-year-old boy. You have a disease: female sexual dysfunction (FSD), and the pharmaceutical industry wants to help.
You are among the “43 percent of American women [who] experience some degree of impaired sexual function,” according to a Journal of the American Medical Association article. The FDA’s evolving definition of FSD includes decreased desire or arousal, sexual pain and orgasm difficulties—but only if the woman feels “personal distress” about it.
So, convincing women to feel distress is a key component of the drug company strategy to market a multi-billion-dollar pill that will cure billions of women of what may not ail them.
Allen goes on to describe the big pharmaceutical companies' attempts to define women's sexuality as men's sexuality gone awry -- we should get turned on easily and have mind-blowing orgasms every time -- and their failed attempts (so far) to give us instant arousal and explosive orgasms with drugs. She discusses several drugs and how they have not turned out to be helpful to women.
I agree that we're not defective men, and we absolutely should not fall for attempts to medicalize what might be perfectly normal. I encourage you to read
Allen's article in full. (I itched to retitle it "Restless Clitoris Syndrome," however!)
On the other side, I hear from enough unhappy women (and men) to assert that we often DO have medical reasons that our sex functioning isn't working the way we want, especially as we age. I encourage both women and men who are experiencing changes in their desire and/or ability to get aroused and experience orgasm to see a trusted medical professional. It's important to learn whether there's a medical reason for the change and to explore treatment options, if so. The right hormonal treatment, or a change in other medications that are affecting our sexual response, can make an enormous difference in our enjoyment of our sexuality.
If the change is due to psychological and/or relationship issues, then a counselor or sex therapist can make the difference between a dissatisfying or non-existent sex life and a richly rewarding one.
Doing nothing about an unhappy sex life only insures that it will remain the same or worsen.
from Joan Price's Better Than I Ever Expected: Sex and Aging blog (http://betterthanieverexpected.blogspot.com/), by Joan Price, author of Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex after Sixty. http://www.betterthanieverexpected.blogspot.com
"'Restless Vagina Syndrome': Big Pharma's Newest Fake Disease" by Terry J. Allen discusses the attempt to medicalize women's sexuality as if we were men with faulty functioning who need fixing. Allen, senior editor of In These Times, writes,
Allen goes on to describe the big pharmaceutical companies' attempts to define women's sexuality as men's sexuality gone awry -- we should get turned on easily and have mind-blowing orgasms every time -- and their failed attempts (so far) to give us instant arousal and explosive orgasms with drugs. She discusses several drugs and how they have not turned out to be helpful to women.
I agree that we're not defective men, and we absolutely should not fall for attempts to medicalize what might be perfectly normal. I encourage you to read Allen's article in full. (I itched to retitle it "Restless Clitoris Syndrome," however!)
On the other side, I hear from enough unhappy women (and men) to assert that we often DO have medical reasons that our sex functioning isn't working the way we want, especially as we age. I encourage both women and men who are experiencing changes in their desire and/or ability to get aroused and experience orgasm to see a trusted medical professional. It's important to learn whether there's a medical reason for the change and to explore treatment options, if so. The right hormonal treatment, or a change in other medications that are affecting our sexual response, can make an enormous difference in our enjoyment of our sexuality.
If the change is due to psychological and/or relationship issues, then a counselor or sex therapist can make the difference between a dissatisfying or non-existent sex life and a richly rewarding one.
Doing nothing about an unhappy sex life only insures that it will remain the same or worsen.