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 A nasal spray, daily pill, testosterone injection and a skin patch known as the 'libido patch' are currently in drug trials. |
More than 10 years after Viagra hit the market, pharmaceutical giants are racing to score government approval for the equivalent female sex treatment.
A nasal spray, daily pill, testosterone injection and a skin patch known as the 'libido patch' are currently in drug trials --even though the jury's still out on whether female sexual dysfunction (FSD) isn't a myth propagated by the drug industry.
But, if approvals are denied, many women such as Kathy Campbell -- a test subject for a pill that targets the pleasure zones of a woman's brain to restore shrinking libidos -- fear they'll kiss their newly restored sex lives goodbye.
"There was a major difference in my desire," says Campbell, who is among 5,000 women in the trial for Flibanserin. "When women get their fix, whether we're talking voting or anything, they start to realize, you know what, this is my right too."
Germany's Boehringer-Ingelheim, who created the drug, hopes to get FDA approval next year.
Happily married, Campbell desperately craves the intimacy and desire she once shared with her husband of six years.
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When medical doctors and psychologists were unable to find an acceptable explanation for Campbell's withering sex drive, she not only became convinced that FSD exists, but that she'd joined the millions of women reportedly suffering from it.
"My husband and I were fine, we were like, what the heck? It wasn't like I was withholding sex or trying to be difficult."
The icing on the cake, she says, was when her doctor told her that, as women, "to keep our men happy, you just do it."
But Campbell didn't want to just do it -- she wanted to enjoy it too.
The CTV documentary Pharma Sutra, airing Saturday, explores the controversy surrounding the FSD label.
At the centre of the debate is an alarming statistic derived from a 1999 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association claiming that 43% of women ages 18 to 59 suffer some kind of sexual dysfunction.
Critics have questioned the findings, namely becauseparticipants were deemed dysfunctional if they answered yes to any of the seven questions regarding sexual problems over a two-month span.
Leonore Tiefer, an associate professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, is trying to prevent a "pink Viagra" from entering the marketplace.
In 2000, she and a group of women set up the New View Campaign to try and stifle FSD panic and what she calls "disease mongering."
"What sex means is internalized in each of us," says Tiefer on the groups' website.
"What we expect, what we do, how we feel, if we're happy, if we're growing, if we're unhappy, if we're critical ..."
Tiefer, who is featured in the documentary, said she believes that pumping out prescriptions to aid depleted libidos is missing the mark.
Rather, she says that a woman's sex drive naturally fluctuates, with everything from stress, health, age, work, lifestyle and relationships impacting it.
Identifying what is normal is fuzzy, at best.
While the push is strong for evidence proving FSD is a medical issue, as it stands, the American Psychological Association broadly describes it as a mental disorder that ranges from loss of sexual desire, discomfort during intercourse, lack of blood flow to the vagina, trauma-related aversion to sex and difficulty achieving orgasm.
In just five weeks after taking Flibanserin, Campbell says her arousal levels skyrocketed, with sleepiness the only major side effect she experienced.
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SEXUAL DESIRE THROUGH THE AGES
1500s
The female orgasm gets scientific recognition with the help of Italian doctor Mateo Renaldo Columbus. The magic female button is named the clitoris, which means little hill in Greek.
1800s
A female malady known as "hysteria" is popularized. In modern times, this would simply be described as sexual dissatisfaction. Early-day treatment involved clitoral massage.
1883
British doctor Joseph Mortimer Granville paves the orgasmic road for women for years to come when he patents the first electromechanical vibrator.
1950s
Female hysteria vanishes frommedical text books