Viagra is doing so well for men--especially for men in the pharmaceutical industry--that legions of sexologists and urologists are trying to find a way to market it to women.
If men have erectile dysfunction, though, what do women have? There must be something comparable. It's only fair. Accordingly, a new category of disorder is now being promoted, "female sexual dysfunction," or FSD.
At the Boston University School of Medicine, urologist Irwin Goldstein is planning a conference on FSD, to be held in Boston this weekend. The program has many well-known speakers from the world of sexology who will be paid by Pfizer and other drug companies to give their talks. The payment is indirect, of course; it comes in the form of "unrestricted educational grants" to the host institution. Two sessions are scheduled to discuss the creation of a new society--probably a Society for the Study of Female Sexual Dysfunction, modeled on the pharmaceutical industry-funded Society for the Study of Impotence. There's even a session on "how to run a drug trial," which is most unusual at a scientific meeting.
Whose interests would be served by the Boston meeting and this new organization? Which points of view will be present and which will be absent? Which groups of people interested in and knowledgeable about women's sexuality will be present and which will be absent?
Organizers of the meeting have invited people from many "health care disciplines." No invitations, however, were sent to researchers in women's studies or gender studies, social psychology, sociology or anthropology, gay and lesbian studies, history or cultural studies. Thus, people who have social, psychological or cultural perspectives on sexuality will not be heard at this conference on "female sexual dysfunction."
The audience therefore will not learn that the very notion of "normal" functioning, let alone definitions of "dysfunctioning," are culturally and socially determined. They are not analogous to medical conditions or diseases like arthritis or gout. The audience will not be required to think about questions like: Who decides what's normal? Who decides what is a "dysfunction" and what kind of treatment is appropriate?
If this new "disorder" takes off, another big step will have been taken in the ongoing medicalization of life's ordinary problems. It will work like this: Drug companies will pay for endless studies of minute components of the genitalia. Data will be presented at expensive meetings (in exotic places) underwritten by drug companies and published in new books and journals, supported by drug company ads.
