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Older Women and Sexual Health
Published in Jane M. Ussher, Joan C. Chrisler, Janette Perz, Routledge International Handbook of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2019
Camille J. Interligi, Maureen C. McHugh
Diagnoses and medical conditions, like discourses of sexuality, are socially constructed (Tiefer, 2015). Conceptualizations of women’s sexual functioning have been influenced by medical and public discourses since early in the 20th century (Angel, 2010). Historically, women have been criticized for having too much sexual desire (nymphomania) or too little sexual desire (frigidity). Frigidity refers to a variety of women’s “sexual failures,” including an absence of desire and lack of responsiveness to men’s advances (Angel, 2010). However, frigidity has most commonly referred to the failure to experience orgasm through vaginal penetration, and thus women’s failure to adhere to gender and sexual roles. Distinctions between vaginal and clitoral orgasms are no longer made, but issues related to women’s demonstration of the “correct” levels of desire and appropriate (hetero)sexual response remain of medical concern.
Making sense of symptoms
Published in Ruth Skrine, Blocks and Freedoms in Sexual Life, 2019
People who write about sexual difficulties use different and often idiosyncratic classifications of the problems they see, and I am no exception. For example, I have used the old-fashioned word 'frigidity' because I prefer it to 'non-orgasmic' or 'dysfunction of the arousal phase'. Frigidity describes something of the painful sense of being out of touch with feelings and also the atmosphere that can develop in the consultation, as described in the previous chapter. The doctor often becomes very active, as if chipping away at a block of ice with questions and ideas, yet somehow the patient, however hard she tries, cannot let out any feelings about the things that matter to her, except the despair of being how she is. One must, of course, identify what is meant by frigidity. Is it that awful feeling of not wanting even to be touched?: 'I am standing at the sink and he comes and puts his arms round me and I freeze.' What a terrible feeling. Is it that intercourse can be tolerated but in a totally passive way, almost as a martyr who 'lies there and thinks of England'. Often the complaint is of an inability to reach orgasm, even though she begins to get aroused and moist, before something creates a block and she turns off. In my experience such a woman often does not feel so cold in the consulting room, but she may block deeper exploration of her feelings.
Catalog of Herbs
Published in James A. Duke, Handbook of Medicinal Herbs, 2018
Reported to be aphrodisiac, caustic, contraceptive, insecticidal, poison, and sterilant, dumbcane is a folk remedy for angina, cancer, coma, dropsy, dysmenorrhea, edema, frigidity, impotence, internal ulcers, prurigo, swellings, varicosities, warts, and yaws.32 In Cuba, where called maté de cancer, dumbcane juice is applied to corns and warts.4 Morton,42 however, drawing on a Cuban classic, says “The plant has no medical use in Cuba”. The homeopathic tincture is used for frigidity and sexual impotence. Yet natives of the West Indies are said to chew the roots to bring on temporary male sterility. Guatemalans poultice mashed stems and leaves to animal bites, gout, and rheumatism. Salvadorans apply the seed oil to burns, inflammations, and wounds. Costa Ricans apply the sap, like the Cubans, to tumors and warts. For angina, Brazilians gargle the leaf decoction.42
Effect of COVID-19 pandemic on female sexual function in women with female genital mutilation
Published in Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 2022
Ozgur Ozer, Esra Keles, Hasan Huseyin Eker, Ifrah Abdi Nor, Kurşad Nuri Baydili
FGM is a traditional practice rooted in the cultures and beliefs of some communities, and one of the reasons for practicing is to prevent premarital sexual intercourse and protect virginity (Odukogbe AA et al. 2017). This practice of FGM may reduce the sexual response and lead to inability in achieving orgasm and frigidity (S. Abdel-Azim 2013). In addition, cases of pinhole introitus or narrowed vaginal orifice; where the husbands are having difficulty penetrating the vagina, and consummation of marriage may extend from 2 weeks up to 12 weeks (Dorkeno and Elworthy 1992). Infibulation is a painful procedure and may take several years to complete the consummation during which women get medical care for infertility (S. Abdel-Azim 2013). The psychosocial and, emotional consequences of infertility due to FGM are profound since the value of a woman in a society is often measured by her fertility (Horowitz and Jackson 1997). In the systematic review by Berg et al. (2010), women who had undergone FGM were more likely to experience (1) pain during intercourse, (2) decreased sexual satisfaction and (3) decreased sexual desire than those who did not undergo FGM. While FGM solely causes these problems, these issues have been further complicated with the sudden and unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic.
Development of the Test of Adolescent Sexual Knowledge Based on the National Sexuality Education Standards and Results of Pilot Testing
Published in American Journal of Sexuality Education, 2019
Melissa Lehan Mackin, Yelena Perkhounkova
Another issue is that widely used sexual health assessments that have broad coverage, such as the Miller-Fisk Sexual Knowledge Questionnaire (SKQ) (Gough, 1974), the Sexual Knowledge and Attitude Test for Adolescents (SKAT-A) (Fullard & Schier, 1990), and the Mathtech Questionnaire (MQ) (Kirby, 1984), were all developed prior to 1998. Measures of sexual health knowledge that were developed almost 20 years ago have a limited capacity to evaluate levels of knowledge that are relevant to current evidence, educational priorities, language, and the intersection of sexuality with technology. Because views have changed since the development of the SKQ, SKAT-A, and MQ, these measures do not include topics of gender identity (e.g., transgender and nonbinary gender expression), the intersection of sexuality and relationships with technology and media (e.g., pornography and online dating websites), or advancements in methods of birth control (e.g., long-term implants and emergency contraception). Furthermore, language used in these assessments could potentially be considered “out of date” by participants and, thus, limit the validity of the findings. For example, several older instruments use terms like “venereal disease” instead of “sexually transmitted infections” (Gough, 1974; Kirby, 1984; Monge, Dusek, & Lawless, 1977), “rubbers” for “condoms” (Allgeier, 1978; Kirby, 1984) and “frigidity” as opposed to “sexual problems” (Allgeier, 1978).
Ace and aro lesbian art and theory with Agnes Martin and Yayoi Kusama
Published in Journal of Lesbian Studies, 2021
Asexuality and aromanticism have always been around, yet it is in the last several decades that they formed as namable identities. Mentions of asexuality under different names such as “sexual anesthesia” and “frigidity” existed throughout sexological works from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, such as that of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Magnus Hirschfield, and Havelock Ellis (Kim, 2014). Asexuality was identified under the category of group “X” in Alfred Kinsey’s studies in the late 1940s and early 1950s and later it was mentioned in the work of Michael Storms, Paula Nurius, and William Masters, Virginia Johnson, and Robert Kolodny in the late 1970s and 1980s (Przybylo, 2013b). Explorations of asexuality as a political orientation often named “celibacy,” were central also to feminist organizing in the late 1960s through to the 1980s. Feminists from across political lines examined the meanings of asexuality in contexts of gender and racial inequity under which cis women were expected to have sex with cis men. Pieces such as “The Asexual Manifesto” by Lisa Orlando (1972), the writings of countless feminists such as Toni Cade Bambara (1970) and Valerie Solanas (1967/2000), the work of the radical feminist group Cell 16 in their journal No More Fun and Games (1968–1973), and Myra T. Johnson’s (1977) exploration of asexuality in women, each provided varying takes on the importance of including asexual possibilities within feminist revolutionary contexts (Przybylo, 2019). Yet the contemporary emergence of asexuality can be traced to Zoe O’Reilly’s “My Life as an Amoeba” (1997), the formation of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN, 2020) by David Jay in 2001, psychologist Anthony Bogaert’s (2004) study that deduced that around one percent of the population was asexual, and the media frenzy that stirred in subsequent years. Asexual activism on sites such as AVEN as well as in local meetup groups, coupled with increased media visibility, have brought asexuality into public discourse in ways unprecedented in previous decades, allowing for an increasing number of people to identify as asexual and to build community with other people who fall on the asexual spectrum.