Every month my paycheck is a little less because of Medicare and Social Security. In my thirties, I find it difficult to truly appreciate what this contribution means down the line. But my friendships with elders like Juana and Josie have brought home for me how crucial these programs can be. Juana is a single […]
Author: Meika Loe
Meika Loe is Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Colgate University in New York. She is the author of Aging Our Way: Lessons for Living from 85 and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2011) and The Rise of Viagra: How The Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America (NYU Press, 2004). Her critical scholarship on culture, age, medicine, technology, and gender has appeared in a range of academic journals including Contexts, Gender & Society, Feminism and Psychology, Symbolic Interaction, Sexualities, and Sociological Inquiry. She has spoken with numerous media outlets including National Public Radio (NPR), BBC, Mother Jones magazine, The New York Times. Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, and the London Sunday Times.
How To Model Healthy Sexuality for Our Daughters
As a toddler, my daughter started asking about body parts. Pretty soon it became apparent that she was the only 2-year-old at her daycare who knew and used the word vagina. Even her teachers changed the subject. Was I supposed to feel guilty about teaching her about her body? Joyce McFadden, psychoanalyst and author of […]
Guerilla Vulvas Take on Vaginal Rejuvenators
Vulva-activism is alive and well–and on its way to Las Vegas. The latest protests stem from concern about the growing number of practitioners performing female genital cosmetic surgery. The surgeries take many forms. A labiaplasty reduces the size of the labia (while often performed to correct damage to the labia during childbirth or to alleviate […]
“Female Viagra” Up for FDA Review
On Friday June 18th, the FDA will be hosting a public hearing on a drug called Flibanserin, that is widely being proclaimed as “the new Viagra for women,” ages 18-50. I have been writing about the search for the pink Viagra since 1998, when V was approved by the FDA.
This is the latest attempt by a pharmaceutical company to cash in on the Viagra phenomenon, and market a sex drug for women. The first time Pfizer approached the FDA to get Viagra approved for women. The next time Procter and Gamble wanted approval for their testosterone patch. Now Boehringer Ingelheim has a brain drug that supposedly enhances sexual desire in women.
In a nutshell, Flibanserin works on the brain (with the same chemical composition as an anti-depressant) and has been shown to increase sexual desire in women (just slightly higher than the placebo). This is another attempt to establish women’s low sexual desire as a medical disorder (much like Viagra established E.D. as a new condition).