I wonder why we are so often occluded from the conversation when it comes to sex and sexuality—and how and why women’s desire is constantly being dissected, examined, and worked upon, but never stimulated, enlivened, and aroused on our own terms.
Even more so than women’s desire, it seems that women’s pleasure has been almost forcibly shut out of the clinic and the bedroom in
too many ceridaviescampaigner co uk times and places, or negated in lieu of someone’s else pleasure, and that this is still the case today.
Dopamine in particular has been found to be associated with sex drive and pleasure[5]. According to studies conducted prior to FDA approval in 2015, women who were taking Addyi reported that the average number of times they experienced “satisfying sexual events” rose from 2.8 to 4.5 times per month. It is important to note that women receiving a placebo in the same study also reported a significant increase in “satisfying sexual events,” though—an increase of 2.7 to 3.7 times per month. Side effects were also experienced by many women who took Addyi in the study, including dizziness, nausea, fatigue, sleepiness, insomnia, and dangerously low blood pressure, particularly when combined with alcohol consumption (even just two glasses of wine). This image shows the highlighted side effects of Addyi (flibanserin).
While more are listed in the full packet, this so-called “Black Box” Warning indicates that whatever benefits Addyi may have, they certainly do not come without cost. It is not to be taken lightly. Despite these very real side effects, many clinicians and practitioners have vocalized their support for the drug, stating that the potential benefits may outweigh the potential harms. Bat Sheva Marcus of the Medical Center for Female Sexuality (MCFS) in New York City, “Drug trials have shown those women who take the drug are more receptive to sexual stimulation and have more satisfying sexual activities. I like to think of it as helping you feel your sexual hunger.” It is remarkable that Dr. In this vein, we ought to remember that sexism and misogyny are still prevalent in a variety of insidious forms—within and outside of clinical medicine and scientific laboratories, and with or without prescription drugs.
| Product | Dosage | Quantity + Bonus | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kamagra Polo | 100mg | 272 + 12 Pills | 622.94€ 593.28€ | |
| Levitra Generic | 60mg | 20 Pills | 81.30€ 77.43€ | |
| Cialis Generic | 40mg | 20 Pills | 59.47€ 56.64€ | |
| Kamagra 100 mg | 100 mg | 120 + 6 Pills | 330.74€ 314.99€ | |
| Viagra Professional | 100mg | 270 + 6 Pills | 456.97€ 435.21€ | |
| Levitra Generic | 40mg | 30 + 2 Pills | 93.58€ 89.12€ | |
| Cialis Super Active | 20mg | 270 + 30 Pills | 661.49€ 629.99€ | |
| Levitra Generic | 20mg | 20 Pills | 52.63€ 50.12€ | |
| Kamagra Oral Jelly | 100mg | 220 + 18 Sachets | 662.24€ 630.70€ | |
| Cialis Original | 20mg | 4 Pills | 41.99€ 39.99€ | |
| Kamagra Effervescent Tablets | 100 mg | 14 Pills | 51.61€ 49.15€ | |
| Levitra Original | 20mg | 12 Pills | 81.99€ 78.09€ |
The medical and scientific climate around sexuality and proposed and prescribed treatments are rather effects of a widespread and willful ignorance of women’s pleasure, and thus they represent a larger social lacuna.
This is why it seems so imperative to shift the debate from the drugs themselves to the larger medical, scientific, social, cultural, and political milieux in which gender differences are configured and disseminated—configurations that have real consequences for how people experience their own bodies, other people’s bodies, and their sex lives.
The campaign—which includes groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), Sprout Pharmaceuticals itself, and a variety of so-called “women’s health” groups who received grants and other funding incentives from Sprout—has argued that women deserve access to a drug to treat their most common sexual problem (low desire), seeing as men have had a drug to treat their most common dysfunction (erectile disorder) for over fifteen years now (hence, the argument to “even the score”). Even the Score released a short “thank you” video after the FDA approval of Addyi in August 2015 (titled “#ThankYouFDA: Our First Step Towards Sexual Health Equity” on YouTube), expressing support and gratitude to the FDA for finally moving beyond their “sexist” ways and approving a drug for women. In this short clip, the male partner in an assumedly heterosexual relationship quips that the federal approval and release of Addyi might give “new meaning to his four-hour erection.” To this, his blonde, white, female counterpart responds, “I know what to do with it!” The video ends with an image of a “Treatment Score Board,” with the text “Men = 26, Women = 1.” An image created and distributed by Even the Score, a “patient advocacy” campaign funded by Sprout Pharmaceuticals which makes Addyi and pushed for its approval by the US FDA. The number on the left represents available pharmaceutical treatments for men’s sexual dysfunction while the number on the right indicates Addyi, the first drug approved to address sexual dysfunction in women. Such imagery implies that FDA approval is a “win” for some variant of gender equality.
However, not a single one of the “26” drugs for men affect neurochemistry or attempt to influence sexual desire. Instead of targeting men’s desire, they target men’s ability to cenforce tablets maintain an erection. Addyi, by contrast, targets women’s desire, an aspect of which is purported to be their “receptivity” to their partner’s advances. Even the Score has consistently emphasized the number of sexual dysfunction drugs on the market designed for men and compared this to the number available for women, in order to suggest that the disparity reveals a pervasive lack of concern for women’s sexual problems. Thinking back on Even the Score’s ““#ThankYouFDA!” video—which now haunts me—I am deeply concerned about the false equivalences[7] being made so casually about the two drugs. If taking a drug will make women feel the desire that they desire to have, and that is satisfying and pleasurable to them, then, by all means, we should have it!
Marcus makes reference to women being “more receptive to sexual stimulation” in the above quote. This again raises the question of who this drug is actually for—is it for the woman who lacks desire, and suffers because of this lack? Or, is it for her purportedly more virile partner (who in many cases, is male)? In a recent article in the New York Times published immediately following the FDA approval of Addyi, Dr. Irwin Goldstein, a sexual specialist based in San Diego, similarly stated that women might be willing to put up with the side effects in order to garner the benefits: “Some women might find the risk of side effects acceptable if their relationships are in jeopardy because of a lack of desire.” It seems ironic that the very cost-benefit analyses or interest schemas that women are thought to “naturally” or “biologically” engage in when it comes to sex are here being prescribed to women by doctors in the sociopolitical sphere (of which conceptions of the “natural” and “biological” are arguably a part).
These prescriptions also raise important questions about gender, sexuality, and health: Why should a woman put her health at risk just to please her partner? Why is her own sexual desire so sorely lacking from this representation? Why is it assumed that what she would (or should) desire most is to make her partner happy and thus to improve her “jeopardized” relationship? What fildena extra power 150 mg type of—and whose—health are we most concerned with here? Further troubling is the way medical treatments for women’s low desire have been supported by financial stakeholders who brandish their arguments under the banner of “feminism.” For instance, Sprout Pharmaceuticals-funded “patient advocacy” campaign Even the Score helped catapult the drug through the FDA evaluation process, in large part by amassing a number of groups to apply pressure to the federal advisory board based on the flawed notion that the FDA’s prior reticence to approve a sexual dysfunction drug for women constitutes blatant sexism. But let’s not stuff too many pills down our throats before seriously considering what we want, why we want it, and what we could potentially want for our futures (sexual and otherwise). There are many trajectories to that place of pleasure—if “sexual” pleasure is what we choose to pursue.
Just because there are drugs already on the market to treat men’s “most common sexual problem,” does that mean it will truly “even the score” to create and market drugs for women? How did we decide what men’s and women’s “most common sexual problems” are in the first place? Why do we assume they are so different from each other? Let us not forget the assumptions that are being made about men’s and women’s sexualities in each of these drugs’ design and mechanisms of action, and also in the corresponding gender-distinct disorders they require for prescription, compliance, and widespread societal endorsement. Sexual desire is not divorced from the domain of the political—how we have sex, with whom, and with what technologies (including drugs and other treatments), are all political choices.
If we really cared about women, maybe we’d focus more on their pleasure, and try to dismantle some of the barriers to pleasure that women experience so regularly in our world—including childhood and lifelong sexual trauma, other forms of gendered harassment and violence, low pay, antiquated divisions of labor and disproportionate burdening with carework, with housework, with sex work, all types of exploitation, and all the other pressures that exert themselves on women (and other sexual and gender minorities) disproportionately in everyday life. Maybe we’d stop thinking about how to make women more receptive to men, and more about how to put women’s own desires and pleasures front and center. Let’s not pretend we’ve come a long way (baby), just because we now have a little pink pill to match his little blue pill. Especially not when the two pills do such very different things, and when they ultimately perpetuate such antiquated and binary narratives about what goes where and why—for whom—when it comes to sex. As I examine this sexual marketplace and these debates wear on, I often wonder where real live women are in this mix. [1] Viagra is a drug designed to increase blood flow to the sexual organs and is targeted specifically to men, as an erection-enhancer in the case of “erectile disorder” or “erectile dysfunction” (ED).
| Brand | Market Share (%) | Origin country | Price Range | Customer Ratings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PinkBeauty | 35 | USA | $20-$35 | 4.5/5 |
| GirlGlow | 25 | Canada | $15-$25 | 4.2/5 |
| BellaPink | 20 | UK | $18-$30 | 4.0/5 |
| PinkAura | 10 | Australia | $22-$40 | 4.3/5 |
[2] All of these proposed treatments were rejected by the FDA, including the oral ingestable tablet (flibanserin, or brandname Addyi) mentioned last in this list.
The pill was only approved in 2015, after being shot down by the FDA twice, in 2010 and again in 2013.
| Step | Description | Quality Control Measures | Typical Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ingredient Selection | Raw materials sourced from trusted suppliers | Testing for purity | 1-2 weeks |
| Formulation Development | Combining active ingredients into capsules/formula | Stability testing | 4-6 weeks |
| Production | Manufacturing at certified facilities | GMP standards enforcement | 2-4 weeks |
| Packaging and Distribution | Bottling, labeling, and shipment | Batch testing | 1-2 weeks |