Factors shaping women's sexual satisfaction: a comparison of medical and social models

Abstract

Since the introduction of Viagra in 1998, pharmaceutical giants have been scrambling to develop a similar drug to treat ‘sexual dysfunction’ in women. In 1999, female sexual dysfunction (FSD), an umbrella term for a variety of different sexual ‘dysfunctions’, became an official disorder. FSD is one example of the medicalization of female sexuality whereby problems are defined, conceptualized, and solved in medical terms while ignoring the social, cultural, and psychological factors that shape women's sexual health. Based on a sample of 311 sexually active women, this work explores the influence of both social factors and sexual dysfunction on sexual satisfaction. Results show that social factors explain more of the variation in sexual satisfaction than sexual dysfunction alone.

Keywords::

• sexual satisfaction
• sexual dysfunction
• social factors
• stress
• women's health

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cristalle Pronier

Cristalle Pronier received her MA in Sociology at Old Dominion University. She is currently employed as a researcher with the Social Science Research Center at Old Dominion. Her primary research interests are in gender and sexuality.

Elizabeth Monk-Turner

Elizabeth Monk-Turner received her PhD in Sociology at Brandeis. Her work appears in the American Sociological Review, Feminist Economics, Sociological Quarterly, among others. Current research interests include subjective well-being, the gender wage gap, and factors shaping commercial sex work.