Post by Admin on Jun 3, 2020 18:17:20 GMT
How Capitalism Created Sexual Dysfunction
On the Commodification of Good Sex
lithub.com/how-capitalism-created-sexual-dysfunction/
In the beginning was sex. And sex begat skill, and skill (or its absence) begat judgement, and judgement begat insecurity, and insecurity begat doctors’ visits, which begat treatments, which have flourished into a multibillion-dollar industry, so that sex between men and women is today almost inconceivable without the shadow of disorder, dysfunction, the “little blue pill” or myriad other medical interventions designed to bring sex back to some longed-for beginning again: a state of confirmed healthfulness, the illusion of normal.
Sex has been missing from the health care debate. A shame, because sexual health and disputes over its meaning reveal most nakedly the problem at the core of a medical system that requires profit, huge profit, hence sickness, or people who can come to believe they are sick or deformed or lacking and therefore in need of a pill, a procedure or device. Case in point: female sexual dysfunction (FSD), said now to afflict great numbers of women—43 percent according to some, 70 percent according to others, an “epidemic” in the heterosexual bedroom according to Oprah. Ca-ching!
More on that in a moment, but first a bit about FSD’s precursor, hysteria, and the rustic science of bringing women off.
In my room is an artifact of late 19th-century medicine, a heavy wooden captain’s chair with a difference: from below the seat, a cast-iron lever extends up alongside each arm, within easy grasp of the sitter. Work the levers forward and back, and powerful springs activate a mechanism to rock or jolt the sitter (depending on the vigor of the thrust) in a manner meant to produce the healthful effects of horseback riding for ladies suffering from fatigue, insufficient exercise and “pelvic congestion.”
On the Commodification of Good Sex
lithub.com/how-capitalism-created-sexual-dysfunction/
In the beginning was sex. And sex begat skill, and skill (or its absence) begat judgement, and judgement begat insecurity, and insecurity begat doctors’ visits, which begat treatments, which have flourished into a multibillion-dollar industry, so that sex between men and women is today almost inconceivable without the shadow of disorder, dysfunction, the “little blue pill” or myriad other medical interventions designed to bring sex back to some longed-for beginning again: a state of confirmed healthfulness, the illusion of normal.
Sex has been missing from the health care debate. A shame, because sexual health and disputes over its meaning reveal most nakedly the problem at the core of a medical system that requires profit, huge profit, hence sickness, or people who can come to believe they are sick or deformed or lacking and therefore in need of a pill, a procedure or device. Case in point: female sexual dysfunction (FSD), said now to afflict great numbers of women—43 percent according to some, 70 percent according to others, an “epidemic” in the heterosexual bedroom according to Oprah. Ca-ching!
More on that in a moment, but first a bit about FSD’s precursor, hysteria, and the rustic science of bringing women off.
In my room is an artifact of late 19th-century medicine, a heavy wooden captain’s chair with a difference: from below the seat, a cast-iron lever extends up alongside each arm, within easy grasp of the sitter. Work the levers forward and back, and powerful springs activate a mechanism to rock or jolt the sitter (depending on the vigor of the thrust) in a manner meant to produce the healthful effects of horseback riding for ladies suffering from fatigue, insufficient exercise and “pelvic congestion.”