It all started with a friggin' Camp Fire Girls meeting. A high-school girl showed a short film she'd made on body image, then in a halting, nervous voice told about her struggles with an eating disorder. By the end, every mother there was in tears. In tears! Because we all had our thing -- too fat, too thin, hair too weird, butt too little, butt too big, etc., that made us so horribly not right.
The next night, finally off a Hoarders bender, I watched a Netflix documentary called Orgasm Inc, about how in the past few years, pharmaceutical companies, along with willing shills in the medical community, have popularized the "disease" of Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD -- not to be confused with FTD, which provides human females with unattractive flower arrangements).
"I think there is dissatisfaction and perhaps disinterest among a lot of women, but that doesn't mean they have a disease," Dr. Sandra Leiblum, professor of psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School told BBC News in an article about the myth of female impotence.
I'm not arguing that some women don't have sexual problems that could be improved medically, but a lot of the FSD "symptoms" are just the way womenare. Yes, women can take a long time to come, yes, women can take a while to get aroused (note: FTD flowers will not speed arousal time), and, yes, women get pissed at their mates which, yeah, does affect desire.
A 2007 study of FSD among women in Lower Egypt found that marital disharmony, hate and unfavorable socioeconomic circumstances were the most common aggravating factors, constituting 28.1 percent of sexual dysfunction causes among the participants. The next biggest factor were pregnancy-related events.
I'm not a doctor, but as far as I know, there isn't a pill for curing "unfavorable socioeconomic circumstances" and the like (although if there were, I would so take it).
One middle-aged women in Orgasm Inc, volunteered to be a guinea pig in some freaky-ass experimental procedure in which electrodes were inserted into her back. Into her back, as in under her skin. Did I mention that this was a totally untested procedure by, for all she knew, a completely iffy doctor?
The implants did nothing for her besides causing her to kick her left leg at random times. This new trick, while novel and exciting, did not help her sex life, in fact, the creepy invasive procedure did nothing to cure her "problem" which was -- oh, dear god -- inability to come during intercourse. Not inability to have an orgasm. Not inability to come. No, this woman -- raised on the notion that women's sexuality is just like men's -- believed that if she couldn't come from penetration alone, she was "ill."
I so wish she could have read an article like this one from RH Reality Check, which takes care to state in the very biggest and boldest of fonts:
The majority of women -- according to most studies, at least 70 percent -- do not and will not reach orgasm through vaginal intercourse or vagina-only stimulation.
So yeah, a little testosterone might help you out a bit, but even this isn't certain. So it seems to me the best way to alleviate FSD would be to spend a little time on arousal, make sure the female parts that feel pleasure are actually the parts that get stimulated(did I really just have to write that sentence?). Plus a bunch of boring stuff like providing favorable economic conditions for the ladies and whatnot.
What is that? You have more sexual problems, you say? You've suddenly realized that your vag is not completely normal as you'd thought for years and years, but, in fact, hideously ugly and in need of surgical intervention. Don't worry, my ugly little freak, Vaginal Rejuvenation (i.e., plastic surgery for your vulva) will fix any and all labia deemed unsightly.
What's sightly and what is not? Well, the highly lucrative genital mutilation vaginal rejuvenation centers that have popped up in the last few years (Hey... isn't that about the same time you started becoming displeased with your own vag? *shrugs* Weird.) have to find some way to keep the ladies coming in, so currently they've determined that "too long" labia are "out." If you go ahead and get them shortened, I sure hope that long labia don't come into vogue because then you'll be bumming, huh?! (See also: The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss).
Check out these before and after gential muti vaginal rejuvenation photos from one place "helping" women. Seriously!!!??? Not only did this chick not realize that she had a perfectly fine vag (I think it's a good one, actually, don't you?) but she actually thought it was so heinous that it required surgery -- surgery! -- to "correct."
Expensive surgery too. When I googled "vaginal rejuvenation" for you, the sponsored link offered a raffle for $1,000 off. If they're offering $1,000 off, you know that $%$# ain't cheap. Although I have to admit that the concept of a vaginal rejuvenation raffle is sort of appealing in its utter wrongness. Coming soon... penile bleaching cake walk.
Okay. I would hope that we women would all come to our senses and just... stop it. Realize how totally fine we are and get on with more important things (see above: taking time with and enjoying arousal). At the very least, I can think of about 6 million better ways to spend our time and money than getting friggin'surgery. However, as it looks now, I think that the only things that's changing is that more men are buying into this crap too with their pec implants, ED drugs, and the like.
My big wish is that one day someone will be lying on an operating table, legs open wide as they watch a surgeon walking toward them eyeing their groin and wielding some sharp pointy thing and the patient (patient being "regular person misled by fucked up societal norms") will think, "What the hell am I doing?!?" And, O, they shall Rise Up and Spread their Enlightenment among the people, who shall toss aside their sense of shame and unworthiness, and be free to rush forth into the forest where they shall fuck freely and joyfully under the dense green canopy of the trees.
Note: future scenario includes ecological renewal, elimination of STDs, and men and women with true knowledge of each other's sexualities. Void where prohibited by law.
Jill Hamilton writes In Bed With Married Women, a blog about sex in all its funny, strange, boring, smokin' hot glory. visit sometime.
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