Journal #19: Sexual Dysfunctions
Sexual dysfunctions are persistent and recurrent problems with sexual interest, arousal, or response. Sexual dysfunctions are very common, they affect 43% of women and 31% of men some points during their life. Women are more likely to lack of interest in sex, lack of sexual pleasure, or inability to reach an orgasm. While men experience performance anxiety and reaching a orgasm too soon. Three of the major types of sexual dysfunction are sexual desire, sexual arousal and orgasmic disorders.
People with sexual desire disorders experience a lack of sexual desire or a dislike to sexual contact of the genitals. Little to no sexual interest or desire is known as hypoactive sexual desire disorder. This is the most frequent diagnosed sexual dysfunction. Another type of sexual desire disorder is sexual aversion disorder. People with this disorder have a strong aversion to genital contact. They may enjoy loving contact, as long as it doesn’t involve the genitals. This type of disorder may be in someone that experiences some sort of sexual trauma.
Sexual arousal disorder includes male erectile disorder and female sexual arousal disorder. Male erectile disorder is the difficulty achieving or maintaining erections sufficient to engage in sexual intercourse. This disorder may be due to psychological causes like self doubt, or physical causes such as diabetes. Women with female sexual arousal disorder have constant difficulty becoming sexually aroused or adequately lubricated, which may be caused by health problems or relationship problems.
People with female orgasmic disorders and male orgasmic disorders have either a problem reaching orgasms or cannot reach orgasms at all. Another orgasmic disorder is premature ejaculation, which is the most common type of sexual dysfunctions in men. It is characterized by rapid ejaculation following sexual stimulation. This disorder affects men who have difficulty keeping the level of stimulation from rising to the point that the ejaculatory reflex is triggered.
Two other topics that go along with sexual dysfunctions is performance anxiety and sensate-focus exercises. Performance anxiety is the anxiety experienced in performance situations, where the fear of negative evaluation of one’s ability to perform. This anxiety plays a key role in many cases of sexual dysfunctions. It also causes an increase in stress levels and may make the man feel that if he can’t perform sexually that it will reflect badly on their manhood. Sensate- focus exercises is a technique used in sex therapy that works as an minister to people that are not able to overcome their own sexual anxieties. It consists of non genital massage to lessen the anxiety associated with sexual interactions.
