What's Sex Got Do With It?
What's Sex Got Do With It?
Nov. 1, 2000 (Boston) -- Normal sexuality, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and one woman's pleasure may be another's sexual problem, say experts on female sexuality at a meeting held here recently.
The dilemma is best illustrated, perhaps, by a scene from the Woody Allen film Annie Hall, in which each partner of a heterosexual couple is asked by his or her psychiatrist how often he/she has sex. He answers "Hardly ever. Maybe three times a week," whereas she replies "Constantly! I'd say three times a week."
"In order to really understand what is disordered or [abnormal], we should have some idea in our heads about what we consider normal or normative," says Sandra Leiblum, PhD, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey at Piscataway/New Brunswick. "The truth of the matter of it is that we really don't know what is normal for any given woman at any point in time."
Leiblum and other speakers addressed the question of what's "normal" (that is, what women are physically capable of) and what's "normative" (customary) among women of various ages, sexual preferences, cultural backgrounds, and physical abilities.
"Some people define themselves as [having low sex drives], and we have the idea that in terms of our diagnosis of these various dysfunctions, that there has to be the element of subjective distress. So the woman has to A, diagnose herself, and B, say she's distressed about it and wants to be different in order for that woman to receive an actual diagnosis of [low] sexual desire. There are no absolute standards," Leiblum tells WebMD.
Questions that concern both heterosexual and homosexual women and their partners, Leiblum says, include whether it's normal not to feel sexual desire, to be slow to become aroused, or to have to work at achieving an orgasm. Women also are often unsure whether it's normal to experience loss of sexual desire and physical pleasure during pregnancy or after birth, after menopause, or following surgery such as a hysterectomy or oophorectomy.
What's Sex Got Do With It?
Nov. 1, 2000 (Boston) -- Normal sexuality, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and one woman's pleasure may be another's sexual problem, say experts on female sexuality at a meeting held here recently.
The dilemma is best illustrated, perhaps, by a scene from the Woody Allen film Annie Hall, in which each partner of a heterosexual couple is asked by his or her psychiatrist how often he/she has sex. He answers "Hardly ever. Maybe three times a week," whereas she replies "Constantly! I'd say three times a week."
"In order to really understand what is disordered or [abnormal], we should have some idea in our heads about what we consider normal or normative," says Sandra Leiblum, PhD, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey at Piscataway/New Brunswick. "The truth of the matter of it is that we really don't know what is normal for any given woman at any point in time."
Leiblum and other speakers addressed the question of what's "normal" (that is, what women are physically capable of) and what's "normative" (customary) among women of various ages, sexual preferences, cultural backgrounds, and physical abilities.
"Some people define themselves as [having low sex drives], and we have the idea that in terms of our diagnosis of these various dysfunctions, that there has to be the element of subjective distress. So the woman has to A, diagnose herself, and B, say she's distressed about it and wants to be different in order for that woman to receive an actual diagnosis of [low] sexual desire. There are no absolute standards," Leiblum tells WebMD.
Questions that concern both heterosexual and homosexual women and their partners, Leiblum says, include whether it's normal not to feel sexual desire, to be slow to become aroused, or to have to work at achieving an orgasm. Women also are often unsure whether it's normal to experience loss of sexual desire and physical pleasure during pregnancy or after birth, after menopause, or following surgery such as a hysterectomy or oophorectomy.
