The Privilege of Safe Sex

Not having an abortion is 1% luck and 99% birth control. My numbers have shifted over the years, depending on the birth control I’ve used.  In the 5 years that I’ve been sexually active, I’ve never questioned whether or not I would have access to contraception. We rarely think about the privilege to engage in safe sex. Of the nearly 61 million people who can get pregnant in the United States, 43 million of them are sexually active and don’t want to conceive. The level of access among these 43 million individuals is not uniform. As a cis white woman living above the poverty line, my access has been and always will be easier than others. Despite my parent’s religious tendencies, my mom took me to our OBGYN at age 18 to get a NuvaRing prescription. My parents paid for my birth control each month up until I got my IUD 2 years ago.  While my IUD was free because of my parent’s good insurance, if it hadn’t been or if I had any complications that required follow-ups, I know they would have fronted the bill.

My experience is one of great privilege. With the Trump Administration and much of the Republican Party waging what feels like a full-fledged war on reproductive rights, many women have and will continue to find themselves struggling to have access to basic reproductive healthcare. This is despite the fact that the majority of Americans support access to abortion and other reproductive health services. More importantly, the majority of people who can get pregnant in the United States are using contraception.

Within the past two weeks, we’ve seen major legislation in states like Georgia, Ohio, and Alabama. The politicians who push for these bills claim these changes are needed to reflect the views of their constituents, a religious demographic. Yet if we look at the statistics, they don’t seem to be in line with the restrictive legislation. Only 2% of Catholic women use family planning as their form of birth control, and the majority of religious women are on some type of contraception. 68% of Catholics, 73% of Mainline Protestants and 74% of Evangelicals at risk for unintended pregnancy use a highly effective method of birth control (sterilization, oral contraception or the IUD).

If the majority of affected individuals, even the religious ones, are using what some Republicans are deeming an abortifacient, why is this agenda being pushed? To place the emphasis back on the reproductive value or woman, rather than our social and economic advancement. The ability to achieve higher levels of education and work participation is directly affected by the ability to family plan and space out pregnancy.  Where access to reproductive health is restricted women will suffer–but they already know this. People of color will be disproportionately affected by these laws–but they know that too.

There will always be pockets of the population who will never have to worry about this access. Whether because of wealth, gender, race, or all of the above, they will likely always have access to safe sex. Why must we force women to go to great lengths to ensure their reproductive autonomy? Danger should have no place in reproductive healthcare, but when stripped of access, it may be inevitable.

–Rose Hill

“Contraceptive Use in the United States” Guttmacher Institute, July 2018, https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states.

Abma, Joyce C, and Kimberly Daniels, Ph.D. “Current Contraceptive Status Among Women Aged 15-49: United States, 2015-2017” NCHS Data Brief, no. 327, 2018

August Book Pick

This month’s pick is Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit 

Men Explain Things To Me is a collection of essays in which Solnit discusses feminist issues today as well from a global perspective in which she gives agency to marginalized populations and recognizes the white male power dynamic that plagues the international community. 

Review to come soon! 

xoxo

Rose Hill

Female Sexual Dysfunction: Mental Disorder

One of three installments of our Female Sexual Dysfunction series in which we explore the disorder from a clinical, cultural and current global  perspective

Clinically, Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) is defined as “the persistent and recurring decrease in sexual desire or arousal, the difficulty or inability to achieve orgasm and or the feeling of pain during sexual intercourse”. These symptoms, especially a difficulty achieving orgasm, seem fairly common and yet  FSD remains widely off our radar. While 43% of women suffer from FSD compared to 31% of men who suffer from Erectile Dysfunction (ED), pharmaceutical options for women are slim. This reality is frustrating, especially considering the overwhelming research and treatment of erectile dysfunction in males, specifically the development of phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors to treat ED.

FDS is a multifaceted disorder which encompasses physical, psychological and social-interpersonal components, making it more difficult to categorize and treat. There is often stigma surrounding various aspects of female sexuality, however, FSD is subjected to the stigma of mental health as well because it is treated through sexual therapy and is categorized within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

In the first edition of DSM, sexual dysfunctions both male and female were categorized as a psychophysiological autonomic and visceral disorder. In DSM-III, which is noted as a categorical switch from psychoanalytic to biological psychology, the language became Psychosexual Dysfunctions. For women, this included inhibited sexual desire and excitement, inhibited female orgasm, functional dyspareunia, vaginismus, and atypical psychosexual dysfunction. Psychosexual Dysfunctions was changed to Sexual Dysfunctions in  DSM-III-R, along with additional changes in language to the types of dysfunctions within this category. Another change was made in DSM-IV, in which dysfunctions included female hypoactive desire disorder, female arousal disorder, female orgasmic disorder, dyspareunia, and vaginismus.

In the current DSM, DSM-V of 2013, the Sexual Dysfunction classification became more simplified reducing the five Sexual Dysfunctions to three. This was done to reflect the current state of research within the field of sexual disorders, as well as increase the validity and clinical usefulness of the DSM-V. Female hypoactive desire disorder and female arousal disorder was merged into Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder, Dyspareunia and Vaginismus merged into Genito-Pelvic Pain/Penetration disorder, and Female Orgasmic Disorder was unchanged. Critics have argued that the inclusion of Female Sexual Dysfunction within the DSM is harmful in that it ignores other cultural and personal factors shaping sexuality and its difficulties. This is true historically, as female sexuality was only acceptable within a heteronormative context.

The World Health Organization defines Female Sexual Dysfunction as “the various ways in which a woman is unable to participate in a sexual relationship as she would wish”, a definition that has more implications then WHO may have intended. In the 20th century, FSD could have been any woman who was unable to peruse pleasures that did not conform to traditional, heterosexual gender roles. Women were shamed for being both too sexual and not sexual enough; wanting clitoral stimulation was considered taboo. Each of these offenses was punishable by hospitalization! This resulted in the marginalization and demonization of women who wish to explore their sexuality freely. We still feel the effects of this today, despite the cultural shifts that have begun to validate the importance of the female sexuality. For even the most privileged of us, there are still so many ways in which the society we live in prevents women from all walks of life from participating in our sexual relationships as we would wish.

xoxo

Rose Hill

Part two in which we explore the historical context of female sexual dysfunction coming soon!