Deconstructing sexology: Understanding the pathologization of female sexuality

Abstract

This paper identifies the key discourses which underpin sexological science relating to female sexuality; persistently structured as ‘pathological’ according to norms which have been set in comparison to the male. It demonstrates, via illustrations from classic and popular texts and interviews, the ways in which these discourses have endured, despite feminist critiques, to constrain research and ideas about sexual therapies, and specifically, how they have penetrated women's everyday understanding of their own sexuality, which women potentially assess according to these male norms, thus ‘colluding’ in their own 'pathologization'.