Dating Confidential in the Media
VANCOUVER - Women are being prescribed testosterone and Viagra when there is no evidence either will improve their sex lives, says a University of British Columbia researcher specializing in sexual health.
Lori Brotto, a psychologist and professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology, said Wednesday that while there are no treatments approved by Health Canada for female sexual dysfunction, doctors are turning to ``off-label' use of drugs approved for other conditions.
Brotto is one of three B.C. scientists on a panel discussing the growing medicalization of women's sexuality at UBC's Chan Centre Thursday night. The event - which is already overbooked - will include a 2009 documentary called Orgasm Inc. about the drug industry's search for a money-maker like Viagra that works on women.
And the market seems to be there, said Brotto.
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Ever since Viagra hit the market, drug companies have been racing to find an equivalent for women. The medicalization of female sexuality—and the misinformation surrounding it as a result—has never been more prevalent. UBC nursing PhD student Cindy Masaro is out to discover how female “sexual dysfunction” is affecting women’s decisions and behaviours in bed.
“The medicalization of sex is really looking at how gender scripts play out,” Masaro says in a phone interview with the Georgia Straight. “The focus is really on orgasm during penile-vaginal sex, or intercourse. The assumption is that everyone is having intercourse, which we know isn’t the case and which assumes a very heteronormative perspective. Women are led to believe that orgasm must occur during that particular activity or something’s wrong with them….The medical industry is capitalizing on that.”
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'Instant intimacy' fuels higher infection rate in older adults
A feeling of instant intimacy is one of the hallmarks of online relationships, but it also may be a factor in rising sexually transmitted infection rates among older adults, a University of B.C. expert says.
"There is that chemistry thing online," says Cindy Masaro, a PhD candidate and nurse clinician at the STI/HIV clinic at the BC Centre for Disease Control.
"I started seeing friends that were in these totally intimate relationships with people they'd never met before," said Masaro, who is conducting a study on how digital technologies affect women's dating experiences. Masaro's study focuses on women over 25, which she says is an under-researched group.
The rapport and trust among dating partners who meet online may curtail negotiations about sexual safety when they meet in person, and increase the spread of STIs, Masaro says.
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, since 1999 there has been a startling rise in STIs among sexually active older adults: a 23-percent increase in positive HIV tests among women aged 30 to 39, a 71-per-cent increase among women aged 40 to 49, and a 69-per-cent increase in women over 50.
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Some women who hook up in the online dating world may take more risks in their sexual behaviour, says a Canadian researcher who has launched a study on the topic.
Cindy Masaro of the University of British Columbia works as a nurse clinician at the sexually transmitted infection and HIV clinic at the BC Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver. In her work, she has noticed that clients quickly grew close to people they'd met online.
"Most of them had formed fairly intimate relationships and they were trusting of these partners, but yet they knew really very little about them," Masaro said.
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Are women’s dreams of finding their own Prince William or Mr. Darcy making them susceptible to Internet Lotharios?
For her doctoral thesis, School of Nursing PhD candidate Cindy Masaro is investigating how social forces within a digital era are shaping women’s sexual behaviour and risk-taking during dating and early intimate encounters.
Masaro says her findings will help to make public health interventions more effective. To date, education campaigns on condom use and safe sex have focused mainly on teens and twenty- somethings. But over the past decade, rates of transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV have steadily increased among Canadian women aged 30 to 60.
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