Female sexual dysfunction

2010

2010-06-17-NYT-female-sexual-desire-drug

Push to Market Pill Stirs Debate on Sexual Desire
By DUFF WILSON
New York Times, 2010-06-17

[1]
Ever since Viagra met blockbuster success in 1998,
the drug industry has sought a similar pill for women.

...

In results reported last fall at a medical conference in Europe,
the drug was found to increase self-reported “sexually satisfying events” to
4.5 a month on average.
The reported events, which did not have to include orgasm, compared with
3.7 a month by women taking a placebo and
2.7 by those who did not take any pills.

[I am a man, and so have the problem of
zero personal knowledge of the subject of female sexual desire,
and no doubt a strong bias as to my attitude towards the subject.
But with that problem and bias stated, let me go on to say that
I think that’s just a real shame.
Let me give several alternative data points.
I read a book by a female psychiatrist at U. Virginia
[Dr. Anita H. Clayton]
who gave lots of case studies.
She gave examples of women who could
regularly, reliably experience orgasm after, get this,
roughly a minute of stimulation from their “Wascally Wabbit.”
Wow! Who needs men if that is so!
Well, the women still wanted to experience orgasm in their relations
with their husbands and/or boyfriends (that’s why they were seeing her),
and, guess what?
No dice.
We men (at least those men) just couldn’t satisfy them
like their sex toys could.

As I remember the Hite report,
precisely the same outcome was found by Sher Hite.
The vast majority of women
could regularly experience orgasm through masturbation, manually or with a toy.
But with men? I’m not sure if “tough titty” is the right phrase here,
but you get the idea.

Now on to a (probably highly inappropriate) personal example.
When I had sex with my then-wife, my orgasm rate (per vaginal entrance)
was darn near one hundred percent. Maybe that’s to her credit.
But gee whiz, for a lot of reasons, almost entirely my fault,
I’ll bet her rate was close to zero.
And I doubt if the problem had anything to do with her biology.
It was just clueless, indifferent male behavior.
And, while I may have been worse than most males,
the social conditioning that men experienced in the 1950s and 1960s
quite simply was not at all directed towards
the desirability, let alone the capability,
of helping your female sex partner experience sexual satisfaction.

And you know what?
There seems to be at least some evidence that, even today,
there are many forces in our society,
not only conservative religious elements but also some in the feminist community,
who are either indifferent to or actively hostile to
helping men and women do the right things,
which I am, intuitively, convinced that they could,
to help most, if not all, women
experience as much sexual satisfaction as men do.]

2010-06-18-XX-Yoffe-No-Orgasms-Please

No Orgasms, Please. We're Women
by Emily Yoffe
Doublex.com, 2010-06-18

I was struck by
a comment by Leonore Tiefer,
a sexuality researcher at NYU,
who is testifying before the FDA
against the marketing of
the “female Viagra” drug.
She says the pharmaceutical industry
seeks to medicalize our sexuality,
then offers to cure our problems with a pill.
In the New York Times, Tiefer,
describing the nature of female sexuality, said,
“Women’s sex lives are often
a struggle, a disappointment,
an archipelago of regret.”
The drug, flibanserin,
may indeed not be worth approving,
and Tiefer has a point about medicalization,
but “archipelago of regret”?
It sounds as if the sex doctor needs a sex doctor.

Looking further into Tiefer’s writing, a distinct theme emerges:
Sex is for the birds, and orgasms are for men.
In this paper,
she takes sexuality researcher William Masters to task
for studying female sexual response by using as subjects,
“women who could orgasm during masturbation and intercourse —
an atypical bunch, considering most female sexual experience.”
(Question for Tiefer:
How do you know you’re done masturbating if you don’t have an orgasm—
and why bother?)
And in
“Female Sexual Dysfunction:
A Case Study of Disease Mongering and Activist Resistance”,
she says
there’s a “reductionist” view of sexuality that sees
“satisfaction as an inherent result of normal function.”
I’m trying to understand what’s wrong with the view that, ideally,
normal sexual function will result in satisfaction.
I hope the FDA is also hearing from experts
who don’t seem so invested in the idea that women’s sex lives
are a pleasureless slog.

[With “experts” like that advising them,
no wonder so many women are sexually unfulfilled, if not frustrated.
Cf. Pornland by Gail Dines.]

2010-06-19-NYT-female-sexual-desire-drug

Drug for Sexual Desire Disorder Opposed by Panel
By DUFF WILSON
New York Times, 2010-06-19

A federal advisory panel on Friday unanimously voted against
recommending approving a drug to treat female sexual desire disorder,
but it encouraged the company to continue its research.

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