Opinion: Viagra for women: striking a blow for feminism?
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The Times today has an intriguing article on Viagra’s potential for women:
The long search for the female equivalent of Viagra has led researchers to . . . Viagra.In a small study of 98 women published today, the little blue pill helped women whose sexual performance had flagged as a side effect of taking antidepressants, known as SSRIs -- a very specific finding that could open a new use for the male impotence drug.
For those who believe men and women can’t achieve equality without comparable considerations of their sexual needs, this study takes it one step further:
Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of sexual medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego, who has prescribed Viagra for some of his female patients, said the new research suggests that ‘however you think about men and women, there are a lot of similarities.’
Exactly what those similiarities are, though, has yet to be determined. Which raises the question: Can men and women achieve equality as long as there are two sets of sexual standards and practices?
Swati Pandey wrote about the tricky nature of judging male-female equality by sex. Following Reuter’s trip with two sex tourists to Africa -- who happen to be older white women -- she observed:
Responses to the female sex tourism trend vary from disgust to vague unease. No one’s willing to make this out as a victory for feminism, even if it’s a case of women acknowledging sexual desires and having purses of their own to gratify them. (Heidi Fleiss would be proud, and possibly annoyed that her future clientele can find the frisson they seek for cheap overseas.) And it’s older women at that—not the ones who are usually chided for ‘having sex like men.’
Back to Viagra for women:
-- Amina Khan