After a day of running errands and working, does having dispassionate sex with a boorish, overweight husband sound less than desirable? Has your relationship reached that watershed mark of maturity when foreplay has been replaced by your man’s spastic gyrations?
Don’t blame your convulsing hobbit of a husband! According to new developments in medical science, there’s a good chance it’s your fault!
Luckily, pills are on the way! Boehringer, a German pharmaceutical firm, is seeking FDA approval for flibanserin – a drug many are referring as the female version of Viagra. The drug, originally developed to treat depression, is said to replenish a woman’s depleted sex drive. Hoping for an approval, Boehringer has begun an aggressive PR campaign to spread the good news. The NYTimes' Duff Wilson writes:
In the last month, Boehringer has been trying to lay the consumer groundwork with a promotional campaign about women's low libido, including a Web site, a Twitter feed, a Discovery Channel documentary and a publicity tour by Lisa Rinna, a soap opera star and former Playboy model, who describes herself as someone who has suffered from a disorder that Boehringer refers to as a form of 'female sexual dysfunction.'
Female sexual dysfunction (FSD), formerly known as "frigidity" and “not-getting-into-it”, includes a series of ‘disorders’ such as sexual aversion disorder, sexual arousal disorder, female orgasmic disorder, sexual pain disorder, and - by far the most popular diagnosis - hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD).
You might be thinking, “Is the medical industry using ambiguous criteria to construct or exaggerate a pathology in order to make easy money?” Shame on you for doubting science! Boehringer has hard, empirical data. Their researchers have determined that as many as 40% of women 18-59 experience “sexual problems”, while one in 10 experience HSDD.”
Still not convinced? Neither am I, but if you’d like, Boehringer can send you a complimentary/hilarious "educational toolkit”. Glossed with a beautiful, heteronormative couple gazing into each others' sexually fulfilled eyes under a bed sheet, the kit includes sexual health flashcards and a “sexual satisfaction check-list”, both of which are wonderfully engineered to get you thinking critically about your sexual health.
Of course, as the toolkit insinuates, women are entirely different from men, whose sexuality is physical in nature. It therefore hammers home the point that a woman’s sexual desire and arousal begin in the mind, not the body, so that eventually, the social trope of the emotionally fractured woman is reinforced quite convincingly. As you turn the pages, toolkit gradually draws perception inward to the infinitely malleable realm of personal subjectivity, prompting such inane questions as, “Am I satisfied with my sexual life?” and “What can I do to improve my sexual satisfaction and happiness?”
By the time you finish reading the document, you’re familiar with the symptoms – perhaps you’ve convinced yourself of them. And even though researchers "are still seeking to understand the causes of HSDD”, a diagnosis is easy as pie. Apparently, it can even be made by “non-expert clinicians” as long as they use an 11 question survey called the Decreased Sexual Desire Screener.
Such is the status of consumer medicine. No doubt many women have issues with sex, but I can’t help but wonder how much of this is total bullshit? It’s like they’re asking you to not think of a purple elephant and then diagnosing you based on the fact that you are now thinking of a purple elephant.
Are you experiencing an absence of sexual fulfillment? Well, explaining this absence in terms of your relationship, stress, or gender roles is hardly profitable, so let’s just explain it as a disorder connected to your brain chemistry. Consumer medicine has the solution. No need for romance or foreplay. Think of your sex as if it were an ’88 Honda Civic. Sure, every 3,000 miles you change the oil with the cheapest shit available at your local Pep Boys, but no one is going to help you understand how the engine works. After all, that would put the mechanics out of work. So pop in your pill, perform your normal sexual function, go to sleep, and do it all again the next day.
Frigging EXCELLENT post.
ReplyDeleteMy jaw has dropped to the floor. I'm insulted, what a misoginistic view of those scientist.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't mind I'll post it in my blog but in spanish, this need to be distributed in all possible languages.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed with your penetrating skepticism here. I think that there are a number of things going on that contribute to this medication phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteFor one, although you don't express this overtly, I suspect that you may be underestimating the amount of frustration (theoretically resulting from "HSDD") that is really out there among women. You don't want to undermine the painful reality of what those women are experiencing.
However, with that said, construing the problem as a physical disorder which requires medication/clinical treatment is what is truly problematic here. HSDD may be a perfectly valid condition (the way that lack of motivation could be diagnosed as a "condition") but that does not imply that looking outside of oneself for medicated help is the best way to treat it.
"People forget the brain is the biggest erogenous zone" - Jackie Treehorn
Yes, I agree that pharmaceutical companies likely seek to induce a sense of validation-of-disease by means of psychological suggestion (i.e., their surveys which convince you that you need their help). And why should we expect otherwise? Health companies will do whatever maximizes consumership.
I think that the issue of female libido is very deep and complex, and involves issues of socialization and psychology more than genetics. Just because X% of women suffer a particular symptom does not mean that the symptom is genetic or even biological in origin.
You might want to check out a post I did that's vaguely related:
http://blakerivers.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/abes-brain-chemistry/
One has to ask oneself if it is a "disorder" when a woman simply does not desire sex as often as her (male) mate. Why is the male sexual desire schedule the norm, and if a woman does not meet it she is "frigid" and if she exceeds it she is a "nympho"?
ReplyDeleteI honestly think it is possible for a woman to genuinely want to want more sex, but that should be up to her, not to some male analyst. Conversely, I think that just as "emotional" issues are made much of for women, they are underplayed or ignored for men. We need a more egalitarian approach.