{"id":1957,"date":"2005-11-14T10:27:37","date_gmt":"2005-11-14T17:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1957"},"modified":"2005-11-14T10:27:37","modified_gmt":"2005-11-14T17:27:37","slug":"dysfunction-or-dissatisfaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1957","title":{"rendered":"Dysfunction or Dissatisfaction?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to discussing Female Sexual Dysfunction<\/em> (or perhaps Dissatisfaction<\/em>), all the medical jargon and scientific theories as to why women “don’t like sex and are therefore dysfunctional” come out. Some doctors and pharmacists think FSD can be easily solved with a pill or patch– no big deal. However does this “just give ’em a pill or a patch, and they’ll start happily humpin’ and climaxing” line of thinking conveniently gloss over the larger issue that some women are perhaps dissatisfied in their intimate relationships? What about stress from working, having to take care of children, and running errands all day? What about their past experiences with sex? Were some of them sexually abused or raped? What if the environment within their relationship and their partner make them feel uncomfortable about discussing their sexuality? What about society’s stigmas around women being open and frank about their sexuality? Does a male-dominated medical and scientific field have anything to do with the lack of human<\/em>-oriented (as in actually talking<\/em> to women and getting them to be more open and frank) research of FSD? Don’t these other concerns matter in the debate over FSD? Or are some women just doomed to remain sexually dissatisfied or dysfunctional for various reasons? Sigh<\/em>— just keep on faking it, ladies (or visit your local sex-toy store). Well Planned Parenthood has recently put out an interesting article on FSD<\/a><\/strong> and the issues surrounding the “controversy” of women’s sexuality and women being open and discussing their sexuality.<\/p>\n

[…]FSD: New and Improved!<\/strong><\/p>\n

One thing is clear: the FSD of today is not what it used to be. FSD was originally defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the bible of the psychiatric world, as a psychiatric disorder that was usually treatable with therapy for the individual or the couple.<\/p>\n

But the staggering market success of Viagra, a drug prescribed for erectile dysfunction (ED), prompted pharmaceutical companies to consider treating female sexual problems in the same manner. The first hurdle, however, was that female sexual problems are not as clearly defined or as objectively measurable as (ED), or impotence. Female complaints tend to be more vague, like lack of interest or problems with arousal … neither of which lends itself to medical diagnosis and treatment.[…]<\/p>\n

A New Definition Under Fire<\/strong><\/p>\n

[…]Critics argued that the “new” FSD was a useless category as far as genuine scientific and medical research were concerned. One reason was the subjectivity of the disorder. Two women, for example, who share the same symptoms could have different diagnoses based on whether or not they felt bothered by the symptoms.[…]<\/p>\n

Dr. Leonore Tiefer is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine and a leader of the New View campaign, an “educational campaign to challenge the medicalization of women’s sexual problems.” She calls FSD “a garbage lumping-together of apples and oranges and all kinds of things.” She argues that labeling a disparate collection of symptoms as “dysfunction” results in the oversimplification of the more nuanced and complex problems some women have with sex.[…]<\/p>\n

Dr. Jean Fourcroy, a retired medical officer from the FDA who is now a consultant, was among those who addressed the researchers who convened to redefine FSD in 1998. She began her presentation by drawing a circle with the word “women” in the center, and arrows pointing inward from every direction. The arrows represented different factors that could affect women’s sexual feelings. “Most of them,” she says, “have to do with the environment or relationships.”<\/p>\n

Fourcroy says that the medical and biological problems that can … and do … affect women’s sexual interest are “one very small part” of the whole picture. She worries that the attempt to find a medical silver bullet to solve women’s sexual problems will gloss over the many environmental and personal issues that comprise the larger part of the picture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For example, being in an environment or with a partner that makes discussing one’s sexuality and desires (in this case a woman’s) uncomfortable. Some women don’t want to discuss their sexual desires and sexuality because they think it might “intimidate” their partners, or make them appear to be “slutty,” or knowing “too much” about sex and the intimate regions of their bodies.<\/p>\n

What the Future May Hold<\/strong><\/p>\n

[…]”We need to learn a lot about hormones,” says Fourcroy. She is highly critical of what she sees as a push to market off-label use of hormones to treat women’s sexual problems. “No one has ever proved that there is a deficiency disease,” she says. “When we treat hypogonadism in men [a condition in which there is low or no production of sex hormones in the testes], we can measure it. We can’t measure [FSD] in women, because we don’t know enough.”<\/p>\n

Ideally, the future will bring much more research that will tell us about the long- and short-term effects of hormones on women, and whether medical treatment of FSD is even appropriate in the vast majority of cases. At the very least, Fourcroy and Tiefer both hope that the increased interest in FSD will increase communication about things like female desire and arousal and will spur women to discuss their sexual issues with both partners and practitioners. “In the ideal world, I would like to have every provider comfortable discussing sexuality instead of pushing drugs on [women],” Fourcroy says. […]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hey, if a pill can solve ED surely you can do the same thing for FSD, right? And apparently this is the latest in women gaining “equal sexuality rights.”<\/a><\/strong> No comment from me on vaginal rejuvenation<\/strong><\/a> (I’m still debating that with myself), but Jessica over at Feministing<\/em> has one<\/a>.<\/strong> Anyway, to me the problem is that some women still feel uncomfortable and even ashamed about discussing their sexuality due to social stigmas and taboos, especially when it comes to women wanting to be equally pleased in bed like their partners. Rather than just lying there like an empty vessel who moans on cue in order to please someone else, and completely ignore their own desires. So until this issue is solved, like I said, just keep faking it. Or better yet, find someone who is willing and open to discuss your sexuality and sexual desires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to discussing Female Sexual Dysfunction (or perhaps Dissatisfaction), all the medical jargon and scientific theories as to why women “don’t like sex and are therefore dysfunctional” come out. Some doctors and pharmacists think FSD can be easily … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism-sexism-etc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}