A Sexual Mental Disorder For Women?

Sexuality Thought Leader: Beth Keil 

Looking for ideas for this month’s blog. I set off to discover what people online were searching about sex and midlife women.

I turned to AnswerSocrates.com for help.

Little did I know where it would take me.

“SADD would have been more appropriate but that name had already been taken.”

Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder:

“Sex and midlife women” yielded no results, while “sex and older women” fared a little better. There were a couple of inquiries such as “Can 80-and 90-year-old women have sex?” And “Why am I attracted to older women?”

“Sex” led to more searches. The top searches included Sex in the City (the TV show). And sex as it related to gender, pregnancy, and urinary tract infections.

Then I was introduced to a new diagnosis, “Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder,” HSDD for short.

SADD would have been more appropriate but that name had already been taken.

In addition, HSDD is said to predominantly affect women and is defined as a sexual dysfunction that causes a person to lose interest and desire in sex and sexual activities. It can only be diagnosed after an extended period of at least six months and must be distressing to the person experiencing it.

One magazine article even warned (my word) it’s “more prevalent than people know.”

HSDD Symptoms:

They include:

• A loss of interest in sex and sexual activities
• Being unresponsive to sexual stimulation, either visual or physical
• Feeling significantly distressed about your loss of interest in sexual activity
• And not experiencing spontaneous desire

A Mental Disorder? I knew HSDD had to have a billable diagnostic code, and it did.

“Symptoms do not address conditions that give rise to them.”

Code For Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder:

F52.0 is the code for Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder that is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition. This manual, published by the American Psychiatric Association, is a resource for many health professionals to diagnose mental disorders.

When the tail wags the dog.

Over the last few decades, drug companies have created an increasing number of psychological and medical diseases and disorders with corresponding symptoms. Remember, since these companies also hold patents for the drugs to treat these new diseases and disorders, they seamlessly increase their profit margins.

So, the question that begs to be asked is, what role does Big Pharma have in HSDD being turned into a diagnosis and mental disorder instead of what it really is …

Conditions:

Symptoms do not address conditions that give rise to them. Florence Nightingale knew this back in the 1800s and made them a cornerstone of the nursing profession.

This is why, to truly understand Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, we need to look at the conditions we were raised with and live in now. These conditions include anything that would impact your sense of pleasure, intimacy, sensual expression, and being comfortable in your own body.

In other words. it’s the same conditions that give rise to the growing number of women over the decades who experience body shame, body dysmorphia, and eating disorders. It includes women who cut themselves, or see themselves as inadequate, bad, and needing to be fixed.

“Many of the women I speak with who say they lost interest in sexual intimacy during and after menopause..”

Many of the women I speak with who say they lost interest in sexual intimacy during and after menopause, also say there was a breach, a wounding, in their intimate relationship that kept them from being able to be sexually or emotionally vulnerable.

Unhealed Wounds:

Ladies, there are many unhealed wounds we carry.

They include:

• Your family and relationship dynamics and history.
• Religious teachings.
• Direct and indirect messages you heard growing up about sex, your body, your weight, and your value.

Conditions such as these impact how you feel about sex, pleasure, or getting turned on by your partner. It’s time to look at such issues not as pathology, but as important and vital life questions to explore and be curious about. This is about living our lives deeply, fully, and richly as our birthright.

Here’s to YOUR Aphrodite Rising!

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