'Female Viagra' thread on here...

[marylander1940]

"My desire for sex has left the building like Elvis's blue suede shoes," Amanda Parrish, a mother of four from Nashville who's been an outspoken supporter of the drug, told a meeting of FDA advisers who are considering approval.

 

But critics say it's not clear the drug actually fixes the problem, and they say once it's on the market, thousands of women will be taking it every day. The potential side-effects could be numeorus.

 

The pill, known by its generic name, flibanserin, is commonly called the female Viagra. But unlike Viagra, it works on the brain. Viagra affects blood flow to the genitals.

 

Parrish says flibanserin helped her when she tried it. "As if a light switch had been turned on, so was I," she said.

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There's been a lot of controversy over flibanserin (pronounced fluh-BAN-ser-in). The FDA has asked for extra studies on the drug and better measures of the problems it's supposed to fix.

 

And some experts say there's no such thing as the medical condition that drugmakers want to market flibanserin for — hypoactive sexual desire disorder, or HSDD.

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/sexual-health/fda-advisers-consider-female-viagra-n369691

[tyro]

Hm. Is this drug geared for post-menopausal ladies?

Frankly, I think a good surf through pics of "our" working guys could solve at least part of the problem.

T

[marylander1940]

Hm. Is this drug geared for post-menopausal ladies?

Frankly, I think a good surf through pics of "our" working guys could solve at least part of the problem.

T

 

I love the way you think... unfortunately when it comes to many gentlemen on here like us visual motivation isn't enough and we need Viagra/Cialis.

[+ quoththeraven]

Ms. Parrish needs to read Emily Nogaski's book Come As You Are. A pharmaceutical solution to female lack of desire is almost certainly a pipe dream because of physiological and other differences, yet there are proven strategies for dealing with low desire if one is armed with actual information rather than societal myths (I really want to say lies) and partner(s) willing to help and try different things.

 

Part of the message of the book is that we all -- female, male, or intersex -- have the same parts organized in different ways, no two alike. (For example, clitoris=penis; labia majora=scrotum; Skene's glands=prostate.) "No two alike" is particularly true of women, whose genitals show greater variance than men's. Another difference is that women are more likely to exhibit responsive desire, either by itself or in tandem with spontaneous desire, whereas men are most likely to exhibit spontaneous desire.

 

For those who want the details: About 15% of women experience spontaneous desire only; 30% experience only responsive desire; other than the approximately 6% who don't experience either, the rest experience some combination of the two. Somewhere around 75% of men experience only spontaneous desire, around 5% only experience responsive desire, and the rest probably experience some combination of the two. Dr. Nogaski goes on to say that "everyone's desire is responsive and context dependent. It just feels more spontaneous for some and more responsive for others, because even though we're all made of the same parts, the different organizations of those parts results in different experiences." [Chapter 7, Kindle location 3742]

 

Women also experience more nonconcordance between arousal (brain function) and genital response than men do; on average there's a 50% overlap between blood flow to a man's genitals and how turned on he feels vs. a 10% overlap between blood flow to a woman's genitals and how turned on she feels. Sexually relevant is not the same as sexually appealing. For men, there's more of an overlap between the two; for women, the overlap is more context-dependent.

 

Women have been sold a bill of goods and told our genitals, sexuality, and desire are (and should be) a watered down form of men's when they are not. That means it may take longer for us to become aroused and our orgasms may be harder to obtain, but it also means more ability to have hands-free orgasms and the ability to get it on with more partners simultaneously or serially. And anyone who thinks female sexuality is inferior to male, rather than simply different, should spend some time contemplating the fact that only the female-bodied possess an organ the sole purpose of which is sexual pleasure.

 

Just to annoy the body/weight fascists some more, here's another direct quote: "Your health is not predicted by your weight. You can be healthy -- and beautiful -- no matter your size. And when you enjoy living in your body today, and treat yourself with kindness and compassion, your sex life gets better." [summary to Chapter 5, Kindle location 3133]

 

Please direct all complaints to Dr. Nogaski (graduate of the Kinsey Institute and sex educator, Smith College), not me.

[tyro]

I am very much loving that chapter 5 summary, QTR -- because I've seen (and certainly felt) it happen for me.

T

[McLeanspider]

would any of you on here consider trying it?

[+ quoththeraven]

would any of you on here consider trying it?

 

No. I don't have faith in its efficacy. Besides, I don't have a problem with desire with someone whose overall attitude toward me is not hostile (aka not my ex).

 

Here's what Dr. Nogaski writes about the female Viagra studies from 2013:

 

The women in the study rated their "sexual satisfaction" with "sexual events" both with a placebo and with the drug. Half of the women experienced no significant change. But half the women (the "high inhibitors" group) experienced a statistically significant difference in sexual satisfaction. With the placebo, they reported being 50.2 percent satisfied on average, with a given sexual event. With the drug, 59.6 percent satisfied.

 

Would you schedule sex for a specific time, drop testosterone under your tongue four hours beforehand, and then take a pill two and a half hours after that in order to increase your satisfaction that might from 50 to 60 percent?

 

And what else might increase your satisfaction with a "sexual event" that much?

 

How about if you felt really beautiful?

 

Or if you felt profoundly, deeply trusting of your partner?

 

Or if you felt like you had 100 percent permission to take as long as you wanted to become fully aroused and your partner would love every second of it?

 

Or, if you have a history of trauma, as so many women do, you felt like you could more completely release that trauma and fully engage with the pleasure in the present moment?

 

Would that increase your satisfaction by 10 percentage points? More than 10?

 

The drug is designed to turn of your brakes by changing your brain, rather than by changing the context to which the brakes are responding. As the researchers write: "Ideally, sexually dysfunction in human subjects should be described in terms of a constellation of interaction mechanisms, both biological and psychological, which at the same time should provide an adequate indication for treatment."

 

This is an excellent example of medical model thinking, since it pays attention to biology and even psychology but ignores relationship and social factors -- in other words, it ignores women's actual lives. You can't medically treat a whole life or a relationship, so why bother taking them into account when trying to figure out how to treat sexual problems?

 

The reason to bother is that life factors like relationship satisfaction and trauma history significantly impact sexual wellbeing -- I'm thinking way more than 10 percent -- and they can be changed. Kids can be babysat and parenting can be shared by multiple adults; relationships can be strengthened; trauma can be healed.

We don't need to reduce nonconcordance. we need to improve the contexts -- external circumstances and internal states such as stress, attachment, self-criticism, and disgust. It doesn't take a pill to do that. [emphasis added; citations omitted] [Chapter 6, Kindle Location 3536-3551]

[+ quoththeraven]

By a vote of 18-6, the FDA Advisory Committee recommended approval of Flibanserin, the antidepressant being marketed as women's Viagra. Here's what Dr. Emily Nagoski had to say about it:

 

http://www.thedirtynormal.com/blog/2015/06/07/flibanserin-the-fda-and-the-longing-for-spontaneous-sexual-desire/

[tyro]

By a vote of 18-6, the FDA Advisory Committee recommended approval of Flibanserin, the antidepressant being marketed as women's Viagra. Here's what Dr. Emily Nagoski had to say about it:

 

http://www.thedirtynormal.com/blog/2015/06/07/flibanserin-the-fda-and-the-longing-for-spontaneous-sexual-desire/

 

Great...........Spoken with heavy sarcasm and an eye roll.........

T