Female Sexual Dysfunction
Female sexual dysfunction has many possible symptoms and causes. Fortunately, they're almost all treatable. Communicating your concerns and understanding your anatomy and your body's normal response to sexual activity are important steps toward gaining sexual satisfaction.
Estimates of the percentage of female sexual dysfunction attributable to physical factors have ranged from 30% to 80%. The disorders most likely to result in sexual dysfunction are those that lead to problems in circulatory or neurological function. These factors have been more extensively explored in men than in women. Physical etiologies such as neurological and cardiovascular illnesses have been directly implicated in both premature and retarded ejaculation as well as in erectile disorder (Hawton 1993), but the contribution of physiological factors to female sexual dysfunction is not so clear. However, recent literature does suggest that there may be an impairment in the arousal phase among diabetic women. Given that diabetic women show a significant variability in their response to this medical disorder, it is not surprising that the disease’s influence on arousal is also highly variable. In fact, the lack of a clear association between medical disorders and sexual functioning suggests that psychological factors play a significant part in the impact of female sexual dysfunction (Melman et al. 1988).
Loss of desire, or lack of sex drive, affects some women at certain times of life (such as pregnancy or times of stress) but some experience it all the time. This is known as female sexual dysfunction. A lack of sex drive can have a range of physical or psychological causes, including heart disease, diabetes, depression, relationship problems, hormone disorders, excessive alcohol and drug use, tiredness, and previous sexual experience that has been traumatic. This is what makes female sexual dysfunction very difficult to diagnose and treat, but help is now here! AMI Australia has a new treatment to help women who suffer from this disorder.
Understanding your body and what makes for a healthy sexual response can help, too. The more you and your partner know about the physical aspects of your body and how it works, the better able you'll be to find ways to ease sexual difficulties and avoid female sexual dysfunction. Ask your doctor about how things like aging, illnesses, pregnancy, menopause and medicines might affect your sex life
Concepts of female sexual dysfunction are controversial, particularly those based on biological causes. The American Psychological Association (APA) classifies female sexual dysfunction as mental disorders: loss of sexual desire or arousal, discomfort during intercourse, diminished blood flow to the vagina, trauma-related aversion to sex, and the inability to achieve orgasm. Historically, psychiatrists and sex therapists have diagnosed and treated these disorders, perhaps, in many cases, according to limited perspectives maintained by psychiatric literature. Urologists and gynecologists now treat female sexual dysfunction that result from medical conditions causing diminished pelvic and vaginal blood flow and nerve damage.
The term female sexual dysfunction describes a person's inability to fully, healthily, and pleasurably experience some or all of the various physical states or stages the body normally goes through during sexual activity. These stages can be broadly thought of as the desire phase, the arousal phase, and the orgasm phase. It has been estimated that about 19% to 50% of women are affected by female sexual dysfunction to some degree.