Over the past few years, discussion on sex and sexuality have become more prevalent in the media as the taboo surrounding sexual problems weakens, yet many clinicians and health care practitioners still have trouble finding a way to talk about these topics with patients in a comfortable manner.
Fortunately, sexual health advocates in British Columbia have begun hosting a two-day medical conference to increase confidence, competence and comfort surrounding the topic of sex among physicians.
Marisa Collins, the medical director of Options for Sexual Health (formerly of Planned Parenthood), founded the conference in 2015 to get health professionals talking about all sorts of things ranging from the latest research on medications and treatment to debating the cultural aspects of sexuality.
This year’s keynote speaker was sex researcher Emily Nagoski, who presented on the topic of sexual desire, which is covered in her book, Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life.
The book dismantles the traditional thought about women’s sexuality, and examines how desire changes for women over time. According to Nagoski, sexual desire is one of the most prevalent issues that patients discuss with their doctors, but it also remains one of the most misunderstood.
“Doctors, in America anyway, their sex education is no better than anyone else’s sex education,” she said to CBC News. “They are just as entrenched in cultural myths and misunderstandings in particular about women’s sexuality as everybody else is.”
Another sex researcher, and the executive director of the Women’s Health Research Institute at the University of British Columbia, Lori Brotto also presented at the conference, offering audience members a rundown of what she believes to be the five key articles on sexuality from this past year.
The major recent advances in research technology (medications to treat women’s low sexual desire to the success of IUDs) have led to rapid changes regarding the understanding of the nature of human sexuality.
It is Brotto’s belief that because many health care providers don’t ask about sexual issues and most of their patients are reluctant to bring the topic up, a large portion of the population experience an ongoing sexual difficulty in their lifetime that goes untreated and unaddressed.
As more and more women enter the field of sex research and help to transform the nature of science, discussions on sexual health may begin to focus on pleasure rather than desire, thus helping to break down some of the stereotypes surrounding the social constructs of sexuality.
Image Courtesy of Getty Images
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