In the article, Allen traces the marketing of "Female Sexual Dysfunction" (FSD) — yes, the affliction itself, since you can't start marketing a cure until enough people are convinced they have the disease — which might more accurately (if less amusingly) be described as "Listless Vagina Syndrome". "The FDA's evolving definition of FSD includes decreased desire or arousal, sexual pain and orgasm difficulties — but only if the woman feels 'personal distress' about it. So, convincing women to feel distress is a key component of the drug company strategy to market a multi-billion-dollar pill that will cure billions of women of what may not ail them."

And even though the FDA has not yet approved a treatment for Listless Vagina Syndrome, the campaign to inform women that our sex lives are inadequate — but treatable! — is already working. Doctors have written 1.4 million off-label prescriptions for Viagra and 2 million off-label prescriptions for testosterone in an effort to alleviate FSD. And they have done this despite absolutely no evidence that either one will help a flagging female libido! Not to mention, "as filmmaker Liz Canner shows in her excellent new documentary Orgasm, Inc., testosterone is usually teamed with estrogen, which increases risks for stroke, cancers and dementia." Fantastic! Not only will your non-existent illness not be cured, but you might get a whole new one!

I should pause here to point out that there are doubtless plenty of women who wish their libidos were more active, or who otherwise suffer from something that could rightly be termed "sexual dysfunction." And as someone whose life was changed very much for the better by an ADHD diagnosis, I am wary of making any "It's all a plot by Big Pharma!" arguments that erase people who have real problems supposedly invented by greedy drug manufacturers. Nevertheless, the genuine existence of a disorder doesn't mean that aggressive marketing can't lead to an epidemic of overprescription and — especially when it comes to female sexuality — self-recrimination. And it's no coincidence that "experts" in FSD often have ties to pharmaceutical giants. Increased awareness of Female Sexual Dysfunction might be helpful to some women, but it's important that we're at least equally aware of a far more widespread sickness. As Allen puts it:

The companies and clinics that narrow the range of sexual normality to porn industry standards suffer their own disease. Symptoms include: a compulsion to concoct illnesses and then develop drugs to treat them, and vice versa. Either way, the syndrome is typically accompanied by a rash of conflicts of interest.

Restless Vagina Syndrome [In These Times]

This is exactly why openly discussing our sex lives — especially with our girlfriends — is crucial; hearing about others' experiences is helpful in gauging our sexual health. This isn't to say that we should automatically think something is wrong if our sex lives don't measure up to that of our peers. But many sexual health problems stem from a discomfort with the topic, and the more we talk about sex and masturbation, the more comfortable we will be with the issue. Familiarity breeds orgasms!

Of course, this might be a generational thing. Pretty much every woman I know talks sex — and often. But we've grown up in a culture — with pop icon sex educators, Sex and the City, designer vibrators — that facilitates and encourages such discourse. According to the study, "The highest prevalence of sexual dysfunction was in older women, but they experienced less associated distress. The most distress occurred at mid-life." However, it also says that "the youngest women had the lowest prevalence of problems and of associated distress," which would indicate that we're still not 100% comfortable with our our bodies, and ourselves.

Almost Half of Women Have Sexual Problems [U.S. News & World Report]