Loss of Desire Is Real

The conversation about women’s sexual health has continued, sometimes with heat, sometimes with light. For the first time I can remember, the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health, of which I’m a member, responded directly to a New York Times op ed piece, calling it false and demeaning (The New York Times published a number of responses this weekend).

I’m grateful to my colleagues who are setting the record straight.

As a practicing physician, I have conversations every day with women who are navigating changes in and challenges to the intimacy they want.

Some women have no problem wanting sex. They may encounter pain with intercourse, diminished capacity, or more difficulty experiencing orgasm. As a doctor, I have plenty of treatments options I can recommend and see what works best. Many of the options are neither prescription-only nor pharmaceutical: moisturizers and lubricants, dilators, and vibrators can do a lot. If those don’t work, there are some drugs that could.

Other women, though, come to me because while they love their partners, they no longer get the sexual urge. They find it difficult to respond when their partners initiate. If I close my eyes, I can see their faces, hear the grief in their voices. They’ve told me about their own sense of loss, of incompleteness; they’ve told me their concerns about the unintended messages their partners are receiving; they’ve told me about their fears for their relationships.

And of course I do the obvious assessments, ask them the obvious questions, make the obvious suggestions. I check their overall health to see if there’s an underlying condition that could explain their loss. I check out—and ask them about—medications they’re taking, which sometimes have unintended consequences. I probe for signs of depression. I inquire about their relationships, alert to any clue that it may not be a healthy one.

And sometimes, I do find an underlying cause. I’m able to treat a medical problem, make a referral for counseling, provide compassion to a woman who acknowledges that a relationship is over.

But other times, there’s no apparent reason for a loss of desire. And for those women, it doesn’t occur to me to say “Nothing is wrong with your sex drive,” which is what the New York Times op ed piece asserted. If nothing were wrong, they wouldn’t be in my office, asking—sometimes pleading—for help.

There’s not a lot in my toolkit to respond to those women. And I’d like some options, because I think #womendeserve them. There have been very few silver bullets in my line of work—solutions that work all the time for every woman. I don’t expect that. I do firmly believe that women—with support from their health care providers—can make decisions about what might help them and the trade-offs that affect their quality of life.

Each woman can decide. For herself. From among options not limited by lack of priority or double standards at the FDA. And not limited by the opinions, however well-intentioned, of other women or men.