Female Sexual Function and Dysfunction: Past, Present and Future

Segnini, I⁽¹⁾

⁽¹⁾Policlínica Santiago de León de Caracas

Introduction: The description of the female sexual response and the conceptualization of the elements that could affect sexual satisfaction have changed for decades but, in the last seven years, researchers identified a novel approach to determine the physical and emotional factors involved in women’s sexuality.
Objective: Determine the presence of other attributed factors in the female sexual behavior.
Materials and Methods: Data from the sexual history of 700 women in my private practice and literature reviewed. Analysis of definitions and models of sexual response, and of proposals for changes to the criteria for classification of female sexual dysfunction developed by the International Consensus Group and by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders work groups on sexual dysfunction.
Results: The revision of the material shows the importance of including a complement to the propositions analyzed. I recommend the use of the traditional Lineal Model for women in a new relationship and those who are in a stable relationship with outside or extra-marital sexual activity. The Non-linear Model and the Circular Model should be applied to the sexual response in women with a long term mate.
Conclusions: Most women in a new sexual relationship feel sexual desire as the reason to engage in sexual activity and have sexual arousal in association to the perception of genital changes as described in the Lineal Models by Masters and Johnson and by Helen Kaplan. The reason is the absence of the effects of routine and/or habituation, the enhancement of the pleasure due to the enviroment with no responsabilities or marital discord, with presentless of the negative influence of stress, and with the desire of being together. On the other hand, in the stable sexual encounter, women engaged sexual play for differents reasons but sexual desire, for example, affection, caresses, to comply with spouse demmands and to feel wanted.