Framing disease: the example of female hypoactive sexual desire disorder

Abstract

Disease classification is an important part in the process of medicalisation and one important tool by which medical authority is exerted. The demand for, or proposal of a diagnosis may be the first step in casting life's experiences as medical in nature. Aronowitz has written about how diagnoses result from social framing mechanisms (2008) and consensus (2001), while Brown (1995) has demonstrated a complex range of interactions between lay and professionals, institutions and industries which underpin disease discovery. In any case, there are numerous social factors which shape the diagnosis, and in turn, provide a mechanism by which medicalisation can be enacted. Focussing on diagnostic classification provides an important perspective on the human condition and its relationship to medicine. To illustrate how layers of social meaning may be concealed in a diagnosis, this paper uses as heuristic the relatively obscure diagnosis of Female Hyposexual Desire Disorder which is currently surfacing in medical and marketing literature as a frequent disorder worthy of concern. I describe how this diagnosis embodies long-standing fascination with female libido, a contemporary focus on female hypersexuality, and commercial interest of the pharmaceutical industry and its medical allies to reify low sexual urge as a pathological disorder in women.