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Low sexual desire is not a disease. Stop FDA approval of Flibanserin.


Lord Happy Toast

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I think the way people think determines what they say, rather than what they say determining what they think. It seems like you are proposing something like the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which I just don't buy at all.

no, i am referencing biopolitics, poststructuralist theory, queer theory, and feminist theory

~m

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Wow, I just joined this site to find out if I'm really an asexual or if it's just low libido like my friends are suggesting. I am not stressed out about the fact that I have no sexual desire, but my friends are the only one seeing my lack of sexual desire as a problem. I don't need a drug company marketing it products to make me feel like there's something wrong with me just because I don't want sex. I understand this drug is beneficial for people who were once sexual and view their declining sexual desire as an issue. It people like my friends and our sexually crazed society that's making it seem like lack of sexual desire is a problem. I don't like the fact that you said they are marketing this drug. Now, if someone is distressed about their declining sex drive I'm sure they going to seek this drug, but the drug company shouldn't aggressively market their products to make women who are fine with their lack of sexual desire question if there is something chemically wrong with them.

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I worry mainly not about asexuals who already identify as such and who know they don't need it, but the people who are asexual, don't know it yet, anddon't think about the difference between attraction and libido, et cetera. Those people will definitely be targeted for this.

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I understand, sorry for ruffling so many feathers.

I hope what I'm trying to get across here is clear... I feel like it's being misconstrued a million different ways.

If you are going to hope to educate people (and you've said that you are an educator), you have to make yourself clear. If you feel that people are misconstuing what you say or that you've ruffled feathers, then it's likely that what you've said is either not clear or it doesn't make sense or it doesn't apply to the situation. AVEN has some pretty bright and cognizant members, and a number of those have replied on this thread.

And our feathers are not ruffled, or at least mine aren't. I just get a little zzzzzzzz (as Gatto says) when a lot of academic tip-of-the-triangle stuff is thrown at a very practical situation.

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If you are going to hope to educate people (and you've said that you are an educator), you have to make yourself clear. If you feel that people are misconstuing what you say or that you've ruffled feathers, then it's likely that what you've said is either not clear or it doesn't make sense or it doesn't apply to the situation. AVEN has some pretty bright and cognizant members, and a number of those have replied on this thread.

And our feathers are not ruffled, or at least mine aren't. I just get a little zzzzzzzz (as Gatto says) when a lot of academic tip-of-the-triangle stuff is thrown at a very practical situation.

I never said anyone wasn't bright or cognizant. I felt I was being clear, but I guess i'll stop wasting my time on AVEN then, i'm not arguing that people shouldn't be allowed to make the choice for themselves, but that "choice" is not something that is independent of discourse. We have this notion that people are "free" to make their own "choices" and that we should just leave them alone, but what I was trying to say is that this kind of logic completely ignores systemic and institutional factors that constrain and produce people's freedom to make a choice in the first place. When you look at the Flibanserin petition through the logic of neoliberalism, of course you woulnd't sign it. But when you see how neoliberalism constructs this logic, it becomes obvious that this logic is problematic, and signing the petition actually makes sense when you take discursive productions of things like "freedom" and "choice" into account.

I was trying to argue that signing the petition actually makes sense when you look at it this way but people started attacking what I was saying for the wrong reasons and getting way off topic.

I wasn't off topic. I didn't feel I was wasting my time. I felt like I was making a cogent and concise argument for why signing the petition makes sense.

Everyone else got off topic when they started talking about other stuff that wasn't about the petition. I was talking about the petition the whole time. (except when I had to defend myself).

I should have a right to say how and why I think about an issue without it being attacked as irrelevant when it's not.

~m

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Here, let me ignore the five pages of background and drag out all of my cynicism gained in experience with psychiatric medications and ignore the fact I'm totally dependent on them for stability.

1. offers only TRIVIAL benefits to women's sexual lives, as shown in the company's clinical trials.

Oh man, I'm not even going into the complexities of the placebo effect. (I will say that I've read severely depressed patients actually do worse on the placebo, which most media outlets ignore).

I've also read a theory that drug companies don't mind publicity about the placebo effect because the patents on antidepressants are running out and that means pushing the newer antipsychotics is more profitable. (Note: if the patents run out then the cheaper generics become available). They're already marketing Abilify for depression. I hate Abilify. I did horrible on it.

2. might have serious ADVERSE EFFECTS when marketed to a large population.

Like all drugs. It's only pulled off the market if a lot of people start dying. I mean, have you read the whole list of side effects for a drug? Once they upped one of my meds by 50 mg and suddenly I was lying down in empty lots. In the middle of broken glass, with some homeless guy's tent 200 yards away. Yeeeah crazy meds.

3. comes with an AGGRESSIVE MARKETING campaign to convince women that sexuality is located in the brain, and that low sexual desire suggests chemical imbalances in the brain.

This is the typical marketing campaign. "This is in your brain (thus beyond your control) and only our drug can fix it."

Granted, that's what they tell me. But at least I know that chemical imbalance is only the popular theory to explain bipolar disorder and no one exactly knows what's going on. Depression is marketed with a chemical imbalance theory too, but life events and thinking patterns also sometimes cause depression. However, it's not marketed as "you might really need cognitive behavioral therapy instead."

Just a cautious note: putting my cynicism aside, please don't ever tell somebody it's all in their head and they need to try harder. You have no clue what they're going through. There's a good chance they're trying harder than you.

Another note: even if people don't know what wonky crap in your brain is causing depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc. that doesn't mean there's not an uncontrollable problem going on. Most of us wouldn't take the pills if we didn't have to. A lot of people waver between taking medication, thinking the problem's gone, going off the medication, and having a relapse even if they think the problem's gone. Who knows, maybe some women do have a chemical imbalance leading to a low libido and the medication will help them. Maybe other women are asexual and the drug won't affect them in the same way a drug won't affect LGBT people.

In the end you really don't have a right to render judgment on someone's treatment plan. If they feel there is a problem they need to fix, then don't criticize it. You can talk about it with them, but you can't bash them for their decision about their sexuality and their exploration of it.

4. contributes to UNDERMINING and CONCEALING social and cultural issues that lead to women's problems with sexual desire.

Popularizing antidepressants as a quick fix for depression conceals other issues that lead to depression. Popularizing Lyrica for fibromyalgia ignores the complex factors that cause it. Popularizing medications for personality disorders and eating disorders ignores the other issues contributing to the problem. Focusing on a simple medication treatment for mental illnesses doesn't help people learn to manage the illness and leaves them unprepared for relapses.

It doesn't help that people want a simple solution instead of a complex problem. Why bother figuring out if I'm asexual or have a low libido when I can take this pill and fix that and be normal?

5. tends to pathologize normal sexual diversity and therefore NARROWS the ‘cultural ideal’ around female sexuality.

The drug companies will market anything they can as a disease. And preferably they will have a management medication, not a cure. Chronic illnesses make more money.

6. represents a classic case of the pursuit of PROFIT rather than women's sexual pleasure and scientific knowledge.

Yes. It is all a case of profit.

In other words: business as usual.

End solution: everyone wants to think we don't exist. Prove them wrong and don't take the drug. I know I'm not adding on a sixth medication for no reason.

Edit: ah ha, went through some background. Time for random quotes:

The drug is intended to treat HSDD, hypoactive sexual desire disorder. As the asexual community knows better than anyone else, the HSDD is a poorly thought out "disorder". Though it may include some people who could benefit from treatment, it also includes some asexuals, and likely many more.

Then the best thing isn't to protest the drug. The next time the DSM goes up for revisions you should protest the diagnostic standard for the disorder. That was how homosexuality was taken out of the DSM. (I think it might actually be up for a rewrite now?)

I certainly never implied that you thought that we are ALL going to be raped. However, you seem to think that nothing can be done about ANY type of coercion, never even mind rape. But social values cause a lot of cases of coercion, and social pressure will significantly increase if there is a drug out there purported to "cure" low sexual desire. Lots of people will be pressured into taking this drug unwisely, without doing the research to find out for themselves whether or not it will have bad side effects (or whether their condition is even physiological at all). If it is approved by the FDA, many people will assume it works, because they will assume that the experts have weighed it carefully and found it to be safe and effective, whereas that may not be true.

Except banning the drug won't fix relationship problems and it doesn't mean that women won't be coerced into something they don't want to do. The only thing that fixes coercion is the person saying no. Empowering women is more effective than banning a potential source of coercion.

People usually do not research the drugs they take.

100 mg flibanserin nightly caused 14% of patients to drop out due to side effects, vs 7% in the placebo group - so an extra 7% decided it wasn't worth it. It caused dizziness, nausea, fatigue, somnolence - and bizarrely, also insomnia. Notably, 50mg daily was much worse than 100 mg nightly, which suggests that taking this at night, rather than in the morning, is a good idea. But given what it is meant to treat, you'd want to do that anyway, right?

I don't think that's horribly adverse. Horrible is a slim chance a medication might give you tardive dyskinesia. Or one that might cause a life-threatening rash. (Hello, Lamictal).

Those are typical side effects. I've had most of them. I had to take my SATs with dizziness, nausea, and double vision. On a new medication I'd occasionally puke in a trash can on my way to class and go on my merry way. And it's not bizarre for medications to cause reverse symptoms in different people.

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Great post, Guttergirl! Especially this: "Then the best thing isn't to protest the drug. The next time the DSM goes up for revisions you should protest the diagnostic standard for the disorder."

These drugs are prescribed by doctors, not just bought over the counter. They usually have to put some kind of diagnostic code down in their records. If there's no code, then the drug doesn't really get a marketing toehold, even if the FDA licenses it.

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Lord Happy Toast

The article says that this was an advisory board rather than the FDA's official decision--but that the official decisions tend to go along with what the advisory board says. And their vote was unanimous. I think this is very good news.

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The FDA advisory committee encouraged the company to keep up the research so they can presumably come up with something that has more effect and less side effects. Meanwhile, the company said they are approaching regulatory agencies in other countries. And the FDA committee didn't say anything about the DSM "diagnosis" being BS, which they wouldn't, since all they're supposed to do is advise on drugs, not diagnoses.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Kal'enedral

The drug is intended to treat HSDD, hypoactive sexual desire disorder. As the asexual community knows better than anyone else, the HSDD is a poorly thought out "disorder". Though it may include some people who could benefit from treatment, it also includes some asexuals, and likely many more. Because of the sloppiness of the definition of HSDD, Flibanserin will not just be given to people with libido problems, but also to the many other people who fit under HSDD.

I believe that the FDA is better equipped than I am to judge the benefits and risks of the drug to the individual. However, I believe they should also consider the larger risks of the drug when applied to society. In particular, the drug will be given to many people who do not have libido problems, but are diagnosed with HSDD due to its currently sloppy definition. Furthermore, the marketers of the drug will work to broaden and popularize the HSDD diagnosis. This should not happen until we get a proper definition for HSDD.

This. I didn't know the term asexual when I first heard about HSDD, but I thought it was ridiculous all by itself. It's in my understanding that if you don't feel like having sex, you just don't; and you shouldn't take medication to make you feel that way.

Also, I object to what seems to be the regular "woman should have sex with guys more!" societal angle to the whole thing.

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Serenity Marie

I'm not going to sign this. there are probably plenty of women who want to heighten their sex drives, and would really benefit from it.

While I understand that it might make our orientation seem more trivial and seem more like a disorder, or something to be fixed, I'm not going to try to downplay thousands of other women's needs to make life easier for me.

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No need -- the FDA didn't approve it.

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