His and Her Health

Virtually Everything You Need to Know, Want to Know or Have to Know. Knowledge and treatment of female sexual dysfunction is at the same point now where male erectile dysfunction studies and treatment was in 1975, but is rapidly closing the gap. With the advent of Viagra in 1998 treatments for male dysfunction have been utilized for females with certain types of sexual dysfunction.

In the process of developing these PDE-5 inhibitors (the mechanism for Viagra, for example) he physiology of the female sexual anatomy appears to be analogous to males and those diseases that effect males often impact females. Therefore, therapies for male treatment of ED may and should be effective in females as well, we are now finding.

Females are much more complex than males and the relationship between the psychogenic and physical aspects of sexuality are more closely interrelated and represent a more intimacy-based sexual drive cycle than in the males.

Scope of Problem

A 1999 survey at the University of Chicago, Department of Sociology, on 3,000 American men and women aged 18 to 59 revealed that 31 percent of men and 43 percent of women experience some degree of sexual dysfunction. Some 22 percent of those women had low sexual desire, 14 percent had arousal or lubrication difficulties, and 7 percent complained of sexual pain. Sexual difficulties appeared to occur in the less educated, unmarried, and sexually abused women. Sexual dysfunction was associated with negative experiences in relationships, low rate of happiness, and overall well-being. These negative impacts appeared to be much more severe for women than for men due to the closer relationship between the physical and the psychosocial aspects of sexuality.

Normal Female Sexual Response

The normal female sexual response cycle is usually divided in to four stages: desire, arousal (excitement), orgasm, and resolution.

Desire is defined as the development of the energy that allows an individual to initiate sexual activity or respond to sexual stimuli. In both sexes desire originates in the limbic system of the brain primarily in the hippocampus and the preoptic nuclei. These areas are dopamine sensitive excitatory centers and serotonin sensitive inhibitory centers. Testosterone, the male hormone, maintains the responsiveness of these centers in both males and females. Desire is also affected and modulated by connections with other areas of the brain such as those involved in emotional closeness and intimacy. A total of these positive and negative influences generates neurological impulses that pass down the spinal cord to the reflex centers that govern excitement and orgasm.