Ok, ok, now medical science has gone just a little too far here…maybe. Just a little? Well, possibly.
The other day I came across a UPI press release that announced a new sexual breakthrough for women: a cure for female erectile dysfunction. Huh?
Yep. I heard me right. Female erectile dysfunction. This is the condition by which a female does not achieve the satisfaction of orgasm due to a lack of arousal. So how do we help arouse women who are not so easily aroused?
If gifting her with a clone of Mel Gibson in his Braveheart skirt is not a possibility, then there’s always the Eros system pump-driven vacuum that was recently approved by that all-important agency known as the FDA. Not the Female Dysfunctional Agency, but that Food and Drug whatchamacallitt that we all despise so much. Not that we need a government agency to “officially” approve a product that consumers choose to purchase or not to purchase on their own, anyway. But that’s all about government regulation, and statism, and legalized gangstering sponsored by the clowns in D.C., and I’ll leave that for another commentary piece.
Ok, so this device, or pump thing, works like this: a little suction cup sort of like those ones that hold those little “Garfield Cats” to car windows is placed over the female’s…(ahem) clitoris, and this tube attaches it to a battery-operated vacuum device. One simply turns on the vacuum, and this causes blood to flow to the clitoris, and this process is thought to be the female version of the erection. In fact, this “engorging” process is said to be the hot button to sexual ecstasy and pleasure.
This Clitoral Therapy device (CTD) is made by a St. Paul company called UroMetrics, Inc. It costs between $250-$359, and has made the American Urological Association excited by the fact the medical research field has made great progress in treatment for women’s sexual problems.
Now believe me, I’m all for terrific strides being made in the marketplace in terms of curing and/or alleviating sexual dysfunction. It’s a noble and worthy cause, and there is certainly a market for such products. But I’m still having a hard (no pun intended) time understanding the whole female erection thing.
Thanks to a neat little website done by Western Nevada Community College, I now know that a female erection is caused by “parasympathetic impulses from the sacral cord (S2, S3, S4) to the clitoris. These same motor nerves innervate the ischiocavernosus muscle. These same nerves cause the clitoris to retract under the clitoral hood, later. The result is that clitoral arterioles dilate and the clitoral venules constrict. This puts high-pressure blood flow into the corpora cavernosa. The clitoris becomes erect it is said to be in a state of tumescence, i.e., a condition of being swollen, or a swelling.” Not that I have the slightest clue of what any of that means, nor do I care as long as all that is working properly.
I have to ask myself if this female sexual therapy stuff is just some ploy to send a woman to her gynecologist instead of her psychologist for treatment of her lack of desire for sex? That way, she can have a professional acknowledge that it is not her fault that she is not experiencing orgasms. Or maybe it’s a gender equality thing. That if the guys can have their little vacuum pumps, so can we. Boston University sex therapy expert Irwin Goldstein says that “technology arrived first on the male side, and is just now arriving for the other gender.” Vacuum pump envy?
Excuse me if I seem a little suspicious that this could possibly be a case of otherwise idle psychobabblers maintaining a kind of gender equality between us ladies and the guys. In other words, we can suffer impotence of which physical – not just psychological – problems are the root cause. Here I go with my paleolibertarian, conspiracy-thing again, but I can’t help it.
But is this legitimate? Don’t ask me. Maybe that’s a question for Dr. Ruth. The ancient Egyptian Goddess Hathor was identified – via ancient images – with sexual pleasure. But none of those images of her ever showed any pump thing hanging around. In fact, back then they didn’t even have them little Garfield Cats with the suction cups, anyway.
Apparently, someone’s statistics show that forty million women suffer sexual dysfunction at some point. This includes lack of clitoral sensation, less interest in sex, and of course, the inability to achieve orgasm. Currently, Viagra and testosterone are being tested with women to help alleviate some of these problems.
I kinda wondered if this was some mindboggling conspiracy of a bunch of feminist types who want to blame their orgasmless lives on a little body part they simply can’t control. Nah. Or I wondered if it is a reaction of penis envy? Probably not. Or was this a coup of sexual therapy science by a bunch of guys who were tired of the Meg Ryan-When Harry Met Sally-“I’ll have what she’s having” scenario played out in their own lives? Don’t be ridiculous. (For those who never saw When Harry Met Sally, that means endless “fakies.”)
It simply seems that someone figured that some women may need a little help at some point, and capitalism capitalized on this most capitalistic of opportunities.
First there was the “G” spot, and the next thing ya know, they’re gonna say we need a cure for premature ejaculation, too! Gosh, I hope not.
May 22, 2000
Karen De Coster is a politically incorrect CPA, and an MA student in economics at Walsh College in Michigan.
