Sexual dysfunction
Sexual dysfunction or sexual malfunction is difficulty during any stage of the sexual act that prevents the individual or couple from enjoying sexual activity.Onset
Emotional factors affecting sex include both interpersonal problems and psychological problems within the individual .Physical factors include drugs ; injuries to the back, problems with an enlarged prostate gland, problems with blood supply, nerve damage ; or disease ; failure of various organ systems ; endocrine disorders ; hormonal deficiencies ; and some birth defects.
Sexual dysfunction disorders are generally classified into four categories: sexual desire disorders, sexual arousal disorders, orgasm disorders, and sexual pain disorders.
#Sexual desire disorders or decreased libido can be caused by a decrease in normal estrogen or testosterone production. Other causes may be aging, fatigue, pregnancy, medications or psychiatric conditions, such as depression and anxiety. Loss of libido from SSRIs usually reverses after SSRIs are discontinued, but in some cases it does not. This has been called PSSD; however, this is not a classification that would be found in any current medical text.
#Sexual arousal disorders were previously known as frigidity in women and impotence in men, though these have now been replaced with less judgmental terms. Impotence is now known as erectile dysfunction, and frigidity has been replaced with a number of terms describing specific problems with, for example, desire or arousal.For both men and women, these conditions can manifest as an aversion to, and avoidance of, sexual contact with a partner. In men, there may be partial or complete failure to attain or maintain an erection, or a lack of sexual excitement and pleasure in sexual activity.There may be medical causes to these disorders, such as decreased blood flow or lack of vaginal lubrication. Chronic disease can also contribute, as well as the nature of the relationship between the partners. As the success of sildenafil attests, most erectile disorders in men are primarily physical, not psychological conditions.
#Orgasm disorders are a persistent delay or absence of orgasm following a normal sexual excitement phase. The disorder can occur in both women and men. Again, the SSRI antidepressants are frequent culprits -- these can delay the achievement of orgasm or eliminate it entirely.
#Sexual pain disorders affect women almost exclusively and are known as dyspareunia and vaginismus. Dyspareunia may be caused by insufficient lubrication in women.
Poor lubrication may result from insufficient excitement and stimulation, or from hormonal changes caused by menopause, pregnancy, or breast-feeding. Irritation from contraceptive creams and foams can also cause dryness, as can fear and anxiety about sex.
It is unclear exactly what causes vaginismus, but it is thought that past sexual trauma may play a role. Another female sexual pain disorder is called vulvodynia or vulvar vestibulitis. In this condition, women experience burning pain during sex which seems to be related to problems with the skin in the vulvar and vaginal areas. The cause is unknown.
Sexual dysfunctions are more common in the early adult years, with the majority of people seeking care for such conditions during their late twenties through thirties. The incidence increases again in the geriatric population, typically with gradual onset of symptoms that are associated most commonly with medical causes of sexual dysfunction.
Sexual dysfunction is more common in people who abuse alcohol and drugs. It is also more likely in people suffering from diabetes and degenerative neurological disorders. Ongoing psychological problems, difficulty maintaining relationships or chronic disharmony with the current sexual partner can also interfere with sexual function.
Symptoms
Psychological sexual disorders
The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lists the following psychological sexual disorders:* Hypoactive sexual disorder
* Bestiality
* Sexual aversion disorder
* Female sexual arousal disorder
* Male erectile disorder
* Female orgasmic disorder
* Male orgasmic disorder
* Premature ejaculation
* Dyspareunia
* Vaginismus
* Secondary sexual dysfunction
* Paraphilias
* Gender identity disorder
* PTSD due to genital mutilation or childhood sexual abuse
Other sexual problems
* Sexual dissatisfaction* Lack of sexual desire
* Anorgasmia
* Impotence
* Sexually transmitted diseases
* Delay or absence of ejaculation, despite adequate stimulation
* Inability to control timing of ejaculation
* Inability to relax vaginal muscles enough to allow intercourse
* Inadequate vaginal lubrication preceding and during intercourse
* Burning pain on the vulva or in the vagina with contact to those areas
* Unhappiness or confusion related to sexual orientation
* Transsexual and transgender people may have sexual problems, though actually being transgendered or transsexual is not a sexual problem in itself.
* Persistent sexual arousal syndrome
* Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction
* Sexual addiction
* Hypersexuality
* Female genital cutting
* Male circumcision alters the natural sexual function for both partners
Other related problems
* Infertility* Paraphilia
Clinical studies
Since people tend not to talk to one another about their sexual problems, many people imagine that they are "abnormal", or that their sexual problems are unique or shameful. Images of sexuality presented by society and the media often present people with unrealistic ideals of sexual behavior, whether of the ideals of chastity and sexual fidelity presented by religion, or the ideal of sexual inexhaustibility and promiscuous availability presented by pornography. Neither image appears to be representative of human behavior in real life: this has been summed up in the phrase "everyone lies about sex".The earliest attempts at treating sexual dysfunctions, especially erectile dysfunction, date back to Muslim physicians and pharmacists in the medieval Islamic world. They were the first to prescribe medication for the treatment of this problem, and they developed several methods of therapy for this issue, including a single-drug therapy method where a drug was prescribed and a "combination method of either a drug or food." Most of these drugs were oral medication, though a few patients were also treated through topical and transurethral means. Sexual dysfunctions were being treated with clinically tested drugs in the Islamic world since the 9th century until the 16th century by a number of Muslim physicians and pharmacists, including Muhammad ibn Zakar?ya R?zi, Thabit bin Qurra, Ibn Al-Jazzar, Avicenna, Averroes, Ibn al-Baitar, and Ibn al-Nafis .
In modern times, the genuine clinical study of sexual problems is usually dated back no further than 1970 when Masters and Johnson's Human Sexual Inadequacy was published. It was the result of over a decade of work at the Reproductive Biology Research Foundation in St. Louis, involving 790 cases. The work grew from Masters and Johnson's earlier Human Sexual Response .
Prior to Masters and Johnson the clinical approach to sexual problems was largely derived from the thinking of Freud. It was held with psychopathology and approached with a certain pessimism regarding the chance of help or improvement. Sexual problems were merely symptoms of a deeper malaise and the diagnostic approach was from the psychopathological. There was little distinction between difficulties in function and variations nor between perversion and problems. Despite work by psychotherapists such as Balint sexual difficulties were crudely split into frigidity or impotence, terms which too soon acquired negative connotations in popular culture.
The achievement of Human Sexual Inadequacy was to move thinking from psychopathology to learning, only if a problem did not respond to educative treatment would psychopathological problems be considered. Also treatment was directed at couples, whereas before partners would be seen individually. Masters and Johnson saw that sex was a joint act. They believed that sexual communication was the key issue to sexual problems not the specifics of an individual problem. They also proposed co-therapy, a matching pair of therapists to the clients, arguing that a lone male therapist could not fully comprehend female difficulties and vice versa.
The basic Masters and Johnson treatment program was an intensive two week program to develop efficient sexual communication. Couple-based and therapist led the program began with discussion and then sensate focus between the couple to develop shared experiences. From the experiences specific difficulties could be determined and approached with a specific therapy. In a limited number of male only cases Masters and Johnson had developed the use of a female surrogate, an approach they soon abandoned over the ethical, legal and other problems it raised.
In defining the range of sexual problems Masters and Johnson defined a boundary between dysfunction and deviations. Dysfunctions were transitory and experienced by the majority of people, dysfunctions bounded male primary or secondary impotence, premature ejaculation, ejaculatory incompetence; female primary orgasmic dysfunction and situational orgasmic dysfunction; pain during intercourse and vaginismus. According to Masters and Johnson sexual arousal and climax are a normal physiological process of every functionally intact adult, but despite being autonomic it can be inhibited. Masters and Johnson treatment program for dysfunction was 81.1% successful.
Despite the work of Masters and Johnson the field in the US was quickly over-run by ethusiastic rather than systematic approaches, blurring the space between 'enrichment' and therapy. Although it has been argued that the impact of the work was such that it would be impossible to repeat such a clean experiment.
See also
* Sexual function for information about assessing sexual dysfunction* Sexual arousal disorder
* Female sexual arousal disorder
* Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction
* Agony aunt
* Anorgasmia
* Premature ejaculation
* Dapoxetine
* Sexless marriage
Further reading
*Kaplan, Helen Singer, The New Sex Therapy: Active Treatment Of Sexual Dysfunctions, New York, Brunner/Mazel, 1974. ISBN 0876300832All text of this article is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
