FLIBANSERIN FOR WOMEN IS NOTHING LIKE VIAGRA FOR MEN

USPA NEWS - Flibanserin is nothing like Viagra. It must be taken every day, potentially for years, rather than, as with Viagra, just when a person wants to have sex. What might be low desire for a woman could be normal for another...

Flibanserin is nothing like Viagra. It must be taken every day, petentially for years, rather than, as with Viagra, just when a person wants to have sex. What might be low desire for a woman could be normal for another. Its aim is to treat low desire, but there is no biological marker for abnormally low desire. Drugs for male dysfunction have been around for maybe tirthy years, but this is the first for women.

The Food and Drug Administration was just persuaded to overlook its reservation about side-effects regarding Flibanserin. Female desire is not very well understood and a mismatched appetite for sex can scupper a relationship. Kids, stressful career, money worries... none of those are here to help. A drug that turns you on, only turns you on.

In the 1960s, the contraceptive pill has become widely available. While many women have welcomed it, some feminist groups have condemned it as a terrible form of exploitation : women forced to stuff themselves with hormone just to satisfy men without inconveniencing them with a pregnancy and the consequent marital obligations.

Science should be investigating women's serious loss of desire and researching the physiological problems that can cause women painful or unpleasurable intercourse. Female disinterest in sex seems not much a problem with sex itself as it is a disinterest in a particular partner. Sexual boredom, when it contributes to decreased desire, may even be somewhat normal in a longterm relationship.

Flibanserin, approved by the FDA is the first drug to be authorised for the treatment of female sexual dysfunction. Feminists who oppose it argue it is an example of the pharmaceutical industry doing what it does best : making money by inventing a sex medical condition where one doesn't exist, creating a perceived need for expensive drugs to manage it.

Also, the exploitation of a natural mismatch between female and male expectations of sex to develop a drug that messes with the female psyche and creates switch for female lust. Another downside is that the drug's concentration increases if a woman drinks, sedation, fainting, dizziness and nausea are likely to be worse.

The idea of drugs for sex might sound weird because sex is supposed to be a recreational activity.

Another symbol of our universal acceptance of what our lives ought to look like if we are to be judged, & to judge ourselves, as successful. The term "female viagra" denotes the idea that female is something that can be tacked on to what already works for men, & that woman loss of desire can be reduced to a pill. At the root of this is that to desire & to be desirable is the acme of fulfilment. Happyness does not exist unless it has been granted by some external authentication. Being sexy is a state to which we should aspire for all eternity. Flibanserin sounds like a drug that will only be right for a small proportion of women for whom there is a biological, rather than purely psychological & social, cause of their sexual dysfunction.