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Thesis on medicalisation of low libido / desire in women


everywhere and nowhere

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everywhere and nowhere

I'm not even sure yet if it explicitly mentions asexuality and, in fact, I admit that it would be a big omission: the growing awareness of asexuality offers an alternative interpretation to what is considered by the mainstream as a disorder. (I, personally, have a more radical view anyway: I believe that "Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder" is not a disorder, period. High libido, moderate libido, low libido and no libido are all parts of normal variance. The only situation in which medical concern would be justified would be a relatively sudden disappearance of previously present libido, and even that might not always indicate a medical problem.) But the text may anyway be very interesting to people interested in the problem of compulsory sexuality in general.

Molly Moreau - "The Medicalization of Female Sexual Desire Disorder: Restricting Sexual Normalcy Under the Guise of Equality and Empowerment" (Master's thesis)

Some quotes I very much agree with (with minor typographic correction because many people don't seem to realise that dashes/pauses, unlike hyphens, should have a space on both sides of the mark - in fact in a script which doesn't lengthen dashes, like this forum and unlike Microsoft Office of Open Office, the only difference between a dash and a hyphen is presence vs. absence of spaces):

Quote

(...) this thesis will problematize biomedical conceptualizations of female sexual desire and will underscore the ways in which medicalization of low female libido lends authority to and is legitimized by predominant heteronormative, patriarchal sexual norms. The medicalization of this phenomenon lends credence to the problematic notion that frequent sex is the bedrock of a healthy relationship and that women must prioritize their male partners’ sexual needs - transforming such questionable beliefs into seemingly unquestionable truths.

(...)

Rather than analyzing the sociocultural, political, or economic factors that may influence and construct notions of female sexual desire, the medical community has largely situated desire, and problems with desire, exclusively within the body, transforming women’s bodies into sites of medical scrutiny. The way that low libido in women has been medicalized reflects and reinforces patriarchal notions of sexual normalcy, raising questions as to whether its medicalization advances women’s health. It is crucial to challenge the existing misinformation about female sexual desire to avoid normalizing the consumption of drugs that attempt to treat what might simply be normal variations in human functioning and to avoid pathologizing women’s refusal to engage in sexual intercourse.

(...)

Additionally, understanding low female libido’s prevalence and diagnostic criteria reveals the number of women that could potentially be diagnosed as sexually dysfunctional. This paves the way for questions as to how a phenomenon afflicting the majority of a population comes to be considered abnormal and dysfunctional.

(...)

The pharmaceutical industry has created Flibanserin in an attempt to answer questions concerning how to change low libido in women, but the question of what low libido actually is and whether it truly needs to be changed remains unanswered. (...) Prior to creating additional pharmaceuticals to combat this alleged problem, an assessment as to whether or not low female libido should even be classified as a medical dysfunction proves necessary. Continuing to create drugs to treat a non-existent sexual dysfunction will not only do little to alter the perceived problem, but will also continue to reinforce the idea that women must engage in sex in a certain way in order to align with societal expectations of sexual normalcy.

 

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10 minutes ago, everywhere and nowhere said:

I'm not even sure yet if it explicitly mentions asexuality...

Hi. I just thought I'd help let you know that I searched the article and there isn't any mention of "asexual," "asexuals" or "asexuality."

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I'd be interested to know the researcher's thoughts on what Dr. Lori Brotto mentioned about the differences between HSDD and asexuality.

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  • 1 year later...
fantastic mx. foxglove

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Hello,

 

As part of our project to archive and index resources posted in World Watch, this thread is being archived and moved to the 2022 Archive forum.

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fantastic mx. foxglove

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Edited by fantastic mx. foxglove
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