Will the FDA Reject the Pink Pill?

Originally published at Empowher.

Looks like women with FSD will be waiting a bit longer for a cure. The “pink pill” was rejected last week by a panel of FDA advisors who claims that the pill’s benefits were not worth the side effects. These effects included fatigue, depression and fainting spells.

While the search for a drug that improves women’s sexual health, specifically the women who suffer from female sexual dsyfunction, the drug does not appear to be beneficial enough to be approved by the panel. The drug, actually an antidepressent, was supposed to help improve female sexual libido and be a step in curing FSD. Flibanserin (attractive name, eh?) acts on serotonin and was originally studied for depression therapy. When women reported increased sexual satisfaction, it was repurporsed to the FDA for approval as a libido drug.

Since Viagra launched in 1998, experimental therapies have been launched to improve and perhaps even cure “female sexual dysfunction” – an estimated 2 billion dollar market.

Attempts have been made to provide Viagra through women and create drugs for women that can improve sexual satisfaction. Intrinsa, a testosterone patch created by Procter & Gamble, was rejected by the FDA in 2004 because it’s long term use risks were unkown. Hormone replacement therapy was completely challenged entirely as studies began to show that it correlated with heart disease and some forms of cancer.

It raises the question: Is there no hope for a female Viagra? Some believe that spending so much money on a drug that continues to be rejected because of health risks may no longer be worth pursuing financially Others feel that that market for women with sexual dissatisfaction is too big to give up. An estimated $2 billion dollar industry may be just around the corner, with more research and testing.

At the end of the day, the question of what a pill can conceivably do for women remains. If a drug can improve sexual satisfaction, it may be a miracle. Most studies have suggested that emotional and psychological factors are tied into female sexual dysfunction – will a pill be able to actually cure FSD? Or will there simply be medicines that help with symptoms. Either way, it’s important for scientists to continue to study what is best for women and their sexual health!

Vajazzling and Sexual Health

I’ve caved on this fine Monday afternoon to write about something that has emerged in various media outlets recently: vajazzling. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, it’s actually exactly what it sounds like. Bedazzling meets your vagina.

Crystals are specially glued onto your Brazilian waxed vagina in patterns ranging from the “traditional” triangle to about every shape in the Lucky Charms cereal box. The purpose? Well, I’m at a loss there. Maybe you think it’s sexy, or maybe your partner finds it dazzling. Though it seems to be reserved for those who can afford it and mildly famous celebrities, if it’s making news, it raises the question of just why so many of us are insistent on changing that particular part of the body.

Why is there such a stigma around the vagina? We don’t want it to be hairy, we don’t want it to smell like a vagina, and we’re so obsessed with amending what it looks like but we can’t manage to talk about what goes in it. We don’t want to talk about actual sex or sexual health, just sexual appeal. So this post comes down to three things – if you’re on the road to vajazzling, you better have passed these three checkpoints first:

1. You’re getting tested for STDs and you’re making sure your partners get tested as well: Your vagina won’t look dazzling with an STD. As with most things, you need to take care of the inside and outside. Encourage your partners to get tested and make sure you enforce…

2. Safe Sex. Don’t waste your crystals on someone who refuses to use protection – there are multiple ways to be accountable for your sexual health. Preventing unintended pregnancies may happen through male and female condoms, oral contraceptives, nuva rings, etc. Take care of yourself and be rigid about your sexual health.

3. Enjoy yourself. By this I mean – if you’re getting pressured and feeling uncomfortable about changing your body, perhaps it’s time to rethink your situation. Everyday we get hundreds of messages telling us to be pure in a certain way, or pretty in a certain way, or sexy in a certain way. What we need to be focusing on is how to feel good about ourselves and be good to our bodies. Consider your needs and comfort level first and foremost. If you feel amazing after a good wax, go for it! But if you’re doing it because other people tell you it’s the right thing to do, take a minute to consider how YOU feel.

Vajazzled or not, our vaginas are important and need to be taken care of! Keep them clean and embrace positive sexual health!

Hymen Myths: Will Changing Its Name Help?

If we change the name for ‘hymen,’ will we change the way we think about it?

The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education recently produced a new resource that calls for just this. The nonprofit urges for the renaming of the hymen to the “vaginal corona”. The logic is, if there is so much ignorance and mythical information surrounding the hymen and virginity, then a renaming allows for factual knowledge and a dispelling of myths.

The guide is a map of the female sexual system: descriptions of female genitals, accurate information about the vaginal corona, and information that challenges myths about female sexuality and virginity. The guide is available in several languages including English, Arabic and Sorani.

It doesn’t stop there – the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education’s website is filled with free resources that provide accurate and sex positive information for male and female bodies – the Dicktionary and the Pussypedia are just a couple of delightful resource titles. They also include a video that talks to men of all ages about gender inequalities, sex, and sexual consent and respect.

The hymen has in many histories and cultures been a topic of mythical conversation. Many young girls are educated to believe that the hymen is just a flat piece of tissue that covers the vagina that gets broken during sexual intercourse. There are misconceptions that other activities can cause a girl to lose her virginity as a result – wearing tampons, for example.

But this is not how the hymen functions – it’s a fringe of tissue around the vagina’s opening – a mere body part that some young girls are actually born without. If it was like a piece of plastic wrap covering the vagina, girls wouldn’t menstruate until they’d had their hymens punctured. Hymens do not “break” in the way that they are often described – sometimes they tear through activities including horse riding, tampon wearing, etc. but that doesn’t mean that young girls are “de-virginized” as a result.

So figuring out if a girl has had sex isn’t as simple as investigating the hymen – physical activities or simply human biology, can lead to hymens looking different. Thus, methods of hymen reconstruction can become problematic, because they hold onto a notion of female sexuality and virginity that wasn’t even true to begin with.

Be sure to read the entire guide at The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education’s website and encourage your family and friends and community to rethink the inaccurate information surrounding the hymen!

Female Condoms Finally Being Distributed

Our nation’s capitol has become the first city in the US to distribute female condoms for free.

While many cities have given out male condoms for free to individuals in an attempt to curb STDs and promote sexual health, DC is the first to distribute female condoms for free. The campaign is part of a larger project to promote safe sex and fight against the city’s high HIV and AIDS rates. Salons, corner stores and high schools will distribute the 500,000 contraceptives to individuals. Certain neighborhoods will be targeted, namely wards that have been shown to involve high rates of unsafe sex and high rates of infection. These wards 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7 are populated by large numbers of African American heterosexuals, according to the Washington Post. A largely black city, DC’s stats suggest that many African Americans have less access to sexual health resources and sexual health education, thus making the community more susceptible to infection, STIs and HIV.

The distribution of female condoms is a step towards advocating for safe sexual practices – relying on male condom distribution alone ignores the opportunity for women to protect themselves against HIV and STIs through female condoms. The hope is that by having access to female and male condoms, more people will utilize these contraceptives and lower rates of HIV and AIDS, infections that are particiularly prominent among the black community. Research has shown that HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among black women between 25 and 34.

The project has been made possible through a half a million dollar grant from the MAC AIDS Fund, which provides money for various city programs including needle exchange campaigns throughout DC. The grant enabled the city to purchase condoms for wholesale prices and distribute them throughout various organizations.

This seems like a step in the right direction – at-risk populations, particularly poor women of color and black women, need to have more resources to take care of their bodies. Studies have shed light on the unsafe sex practices that are prevalent among many DC communities. Female condoms encourage women to use protection even if their sexual partners refuse to use male condoms.

The female condom only recently began selling in the US, first at CVS – pharmacies in DC sell female condoms next to male condoms. Spokespersons for the pharmacy have noted that sales for the female condom have been slow – suggesting that more awareness must be raised about its use and its effectiveness. By educating communities about a wide array of contraceptives, cities will have a better chance of curbing STIs.

Premarital Sex More Common Than You Think

Originally published at Empowher.

The verdict is in – your moms and grandmas may have been lying about waiting until marriage to have sex.

The Guttmacher Institute now has released a report about rates of pre-marital sex in the United States. Using data from 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 National Surveys of Family Growth, which are conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the report studies having vaginal intercourse prior to the first month of marriage or having vaginal intercourse while unmarried.

Males were more likely to have premarital sex at nearly every age – by age 44, over 90 percent of males and females had had premarital sex. 48% of individuals who turned 15 between 1954 and 1963 had had premarital sex by 20. 74 percent of those in the 1994-2003 cohort had had premarital sex by age 20. So while there has been a leap, it may not be as a big a leap as many of us expected.

The increase over the course of decades may have something to do with more effective contraceptive methods and easier access to these methods than before. 94 percent of individuals who abstained until at least age 15 had had sex by 44. 89 percent who abstained until they became adults had had premarital sex by age 44. And perhaps most startling, among women who were born in the 1940s, nine in ten had sex before marriage.

Study author Lawrence Finer states, “This is reality-check research. Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades.”

The study does in fact turn certain attitudes about premarital sex on their heads. The myth that all women prior to the 1960s were somehow more likely to subscribe to abstinence until marriage is being dispelled through this research. Furthermore, the study calls into question abstinence only education as an effective method of preventing or dissuading against having sex.

There are many reasons for believing in having or not having sex before marriage. These values may come from family, friends, or community organizations. At the end of the day the decision to have sex must come from from a breadth of accurate resources and information. It is a top priority to provide all individuals with access to proper sexual health instead of condemning individuals for their choice to have sex. We should be shifting our attention from breaking or following values to proper sexual health education and accessible universal healthcare for all women.