Sexual Desire, the Sexes and the FDA

I’ve recently begun watching PBS's To The Contrary with Bonnie Erbe on Sundays after the political talk shows. Erbe often has provocative topics and interesting female guests. One episode that caught my attention highlighted an example of sexual discrimination at the FDA. The panel discussed a new drug, Flibanserin, seeking FDA approval. It’s designed to treat female sexual desire dysfunction, or Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder as the medical community labels it.

Do not confuse this problem with Hyperactive SDD, aka nymphomania, for which the male-dominated pharmaceutical companies appear to have no inclination to research corrective medication. Hypoactive SDD (or simply HSDD from here forward) is commonly experienced by women of a certain age, especially those who are menopausal. There are other causes as well, but they’re less common and, as far as I can tell, not relevant to my circle of friends.

The company that makes Flibanserin has resubmitted its application for FDA approval of the drug. That would be Sprout Pharmaceuticals, by the way, an evocative name if ever there was one. Their website describes their drug as “a novel, non-hormonal treatment that has shown promise.” The most interesting part of the discussion for me was that the first time out of the gate, the regulatory agency declined to approve the drug because of its side effects. These include sleepiness, nausea and dizziness.

Why did I find this so interesting (you may be wondering)? For two reasons. First, it’s ironic that a pill designed to heighten arousal would cause conditions that are even better than a headache to use as an excuse for not engaging in sex with your partner. Second, (and this is what the panel homed in on), the drug that treats male HSDD was easily approved, even though its side effects include stroke and sudden death. I guess the FDA believed men would feel it was worth it to die with a smile on their face.

One To The Contrary panelist noted that women have more complicated bodies and brains. Hence, the development of a drug for female HSDD would inevitably take longer. Francesca Chambers claimed: "It’s been more difficult to come up with drugs for women because women are different than men. And this is actually a good thing, a compliment to women.” Yeah, right. I’m always a tad suspicious of the word “different” when it’s used to categorize women vs. men. It usually sounds like “inferior” to me.

More likely the FDA rejection notice read: “Women are complicated. They don’t need medication. They just need more time to get aroused. Come back to us when you’ve figured out how to address that.” Don’t hold your breath.

I haven’t been able to find photos of Flibanserin online, but it’s often referred to as “the little pink pill.” One would expect that to be the color of choice for the female alternative to “the little blue pill.” What my search for pink pills did turn up were photos of OxyContin, Naproxen, Clonazepam and dozens of other drugs, including several brands of Lisinopril. This is scary, since that’s one of the most popular blood pressure medications, including my own.

Flibanserin should probably carry a warning for hypertension anyway. After all, one drug group wants to help you lower your blood pressure, while the other is trying to get your blood pumping. A contraindication if ever there was one. In any event, the “little” pink pill had better come in a distinctive shape, to distinguish it from other pink ones. No doubt some chauvinistic developer at Sprout will suggest making it a heart. That’s too corny to contemplate.

As a former marketing and product development executive, I believe I have the perfect shape for them: round with a hole in the center, like a Cheerio. I didn’t see anything like that in my search results. Moreover, Viagra looks a lot like an arrowhead. The little blue and pink pills would thus become symbolic of the sex act itself. I should get royalties for this idea. With my luck, they’ll offer me a lifetime supply of their meds. I’m feeling nauseous already.

Fifty Shades of Creepy

“You start to get creepy when you get to be a certain age.” So sayeth Whoopi Goldberg on The View the week after the release of the movie Fifty Shades of Grey. The show that day had male guest host Ryan Paevey who had tried out for the role of Christian Grey. He didn’t get the part, despite an admirable physique, as evidenced in a blown up ad where he modeled underwear. The waistband read “Girls On Top.” The younger hosts offered appreciative comments on his physique.

Whoopi chose to avoid any cougar-like observations, saying she always pictures a younger man holding a baby rattle. Instead, she wanted to know where she could find underwear with that message on it. This was followed by her “You start to get creepy” pronouncement. I have to agree with her. The TV ads and news items that landed on my scratch paper this week all add up to Fifty Shades of Creepy. More on that in a moment.

Like Whoopi, I don’t indulge in fantasies about younger men. But then, I’ve generally been attracted to older men for whom I might have been the younger fantasy. Or not. My husband is eleven-plus years older than I am, and he’s closer to my age by six years than the man I co-owned a house with before him. But like Whoopi, I’m getting creepier in other ways.

I read all three volumes in the Fifty Shades of Grey series. (Gifts from a friend, I swear.) The first was the trashiest, and as poorly written as reviewers claimed. The second one actually spent time on character development and toned down the BDSM. Author E. L. James clearly ran out of petrol by the time she penned the third one. I slogged through it only to find that things ended like a fairy tale, far removed from the original premise (and promise). I have absolutely no desire to see the movie.

While I don’t lust after younger men, I do appreciate a fine example of maleness in its prime. By prime, I mean anything from mid-twenties to late-eighties. That age-spread alone should elevate me on the creepy meter. Unfortunately, there aren’t many fine late-prime specimens paraded in the media. That leaves me enjoying the early-prime ones.

Take for example #HotDudesReading. It’s a collection of photos taken by a group of women who set up an Instagram account. The men are all reading books or newspapers during their subway rides, seemingly oblivious to the women admiring them. The project is supposed to emphasize that smart men can be sexy. It also appears to say that smart, sexy men are frequently hirsute.

Dudes reading led to a hunk dancing. I watched the BuzzFeed video of Ukrainian ballet star, Sergei Polunin, soloing to Hozier’s “Take Me To Church.” My friend Vicki brought this clip to my attention. She and I regularly attended the American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet in the 1970’s when we both worked in Manhattan. Sergei’s performance brought back fond memories of us swooning over Mikhail Baryshnikov’s fabulous buns. It also explains why Putin wants to reclaim the Ukraine for Russia.

As you can see, creepiness is in the eye of the beholder. It can also be its own reward. Sigh. By the way, Misha is only two years and change younger than I am, so I can still lust after him without feeling creepy.

Returning now to the underwear theme that began this post. After The View aired, I Googled Ryan Paevey. Apparently he’s not just an actor on General Hospital, but also a model—mostly of underwear, it seems. In addition to the “Girls-On-Top” option, the Internet also has shots of him in pairs with “Get A Grip” and “I Want Out” on the waistband. (These appear to be ads for Schultz Jeans, for my fellow-creeps who want to see more.)

Finally, we have a hysterical commercial for Duluth Trading’s Buck Naked Underwear. A rather paunchy cartoon male in “regular” underwear has his private parts in a vice grip and a crank on his behind. He turns the crank, making his undies all the more uncomfortable. (Any of you ladies out there thinking “mammogram”?) Then he tries a pair of Buck Naked underwear and begins dancing with joy to banjo music. A black rectangle obscures his privates. The tag line is “No Pinch. No Stink. No Sweat.”

I confess. I’m more mesmerized by the Buck Naked commercial than I am by HotDudesReading or Ryan what’s-his-name in the Schultz ads. Just color my shade of creepy humorous.

Lost Art of Written Communication

Some events of the past week have me thinking again about the lost art of paper-based communication. I attended Brown University’s Josiah S. Carberry Day dinner at their Faculty Club on Friday the 13th. The featured speaker was alumnus Barnaby Evans, the creator of Waterfire Providence. He spoke about the importance of books—physical ones, not electronic ones—in living a full and rich life. He was preaching to an admiring choir, as Carberry dinners are hosted by The Friends of the Library.

The evening was informative and entertaining and, for me, also provocative. On the almost-two-hour drive home to Connecticut, I was mentally assessing possible blog topics for today’s post. I’ve been writing about communication lately in my usual humorous style. Printed books reminded me of handwritten notes, something that also crossed my path literally this past week. The two ideas came together for a more serious essay about the lost art of written, non-electronic communication.

About three weeks ago we had to make a painful decision to send our elderly cat, Luke, to the Rainbow Bridge. My grandniece Sophie and my grandnephew Bruno, ten-year-old twins, each sent me a handwritten condolence note on our loss. They had met Luke on their visits to our condo not long after we moved to Connecticut last fall. The notes were short, but they each included a hand-drawn picture of Luke and a specific recollection of why each of them had enjoyed meeting him.

The notes made me cry, not just because they reminded me that Luke is now gone, but also because of the thought that went into them. I sent Sophie and Bruno handwritten thank you notes for their thoughtfulness. My messages were written in cards from the Metropolitan Museum of Art that had photos of feline art in their collections. This exchange reminded me of how special such written messages can be, and how rarely they happen in our electronic world.

I'm going to save these notes with other special items from Luke’s life. I hope that the twins also save their cards at least for awhile. More importantly, I hope that they stop for a moment to savor the special feeling that a personal message put to paper and delivered by mail to their own hands can impart.

This thought process reminded me of a project I embarked upon around the turn of the millennium. I had decided to hand write letters to people who had been my friends for decades. In those letters I recounted my earliest memories of wonderful times we had shared that set us on a path to a lifelong friendship. To begin this project, I chose two women whose relationships with me dated back to my first years working in Manhattan after I graduated from Brown. I carefully selected the notecards to hold each letter.

These were women my age. We learned cursive writing in school and penmanship was a serious subject. I was therefore stunned that for a long time neither of them replied. Not even a purchased thank you card. Eventually, one sent me a brief appreciative email promising a more personal reply in the future. (It never came.) I wrote about this in my holiday newsletter a few years later, prompting a new reply from her. She explained that she hadn’t written back because she didn’t know where to begin to respond to my touching letter.

I knew her well enough to take her explanation at face value. (We’re still friends today.) In some ways, I found that even sadder than the total non-response from the other woman. (She passed away several years ago.) How unfortunate, I thought, that the art of letter writing has been so eclipsed by electronic word-bites. And this was well before the popularity of IM (instant messaging) and 140 character tweets.

Perhaps this is why my heart was so deeply touched by the special notes from my grandniece and grandnephew this week. It’s also why I decided to hand write thank you notes back to them. I hope that this is just the beginning of a life-long correspondence between us. (My greataunthood is as close as I’ll ever get to being a grandmother.)

I’d be thrilled if some of that correspondence turned out to be handwritten. But frankly, I’ll settle for a tweet now and then. I am, after all, a realist with romantic inclinations, not a romantic with realistic overtones. If you’re unclear on the difference, I suggest you find a book or two on these topics and check them out of your community library. If you’re not sure what a “community library” is, Google it.

More Spousal Communication

A recent blog post provided an explanation of how spouses miscommunicate. Several of the comments I received presented reasons for miscommunication that I had missed. My friend Mary pointed out that when folks have been together many years, one of them assumes that the other one has become a mind reader. That hit especially close to home in our household. Today’s post explores this issue from a slightly different angle.

When my husband wants a favor, he rarely asks for it directly. Rather, he makes a vague statement and hopes the person to whom he’s speaking will figure out what he’d like them to do. Eventually, I came to see this as his style of communication, but I used to think he didn’t want to be beholden in any way. By not actually asking for the favor, he wouldn’t feel he received one. I found this manipulative and annoying. I tried to force him to be more direct by saying: “And I’m supposed to do what with this information?”

That rarely prompted him to actually ask for help. Over time, my response progressed to a snarky: “And I’m supposed to care about this why?” More often than not, I ended by performing the expected service, accompanied by heavy sighing, the loud banging of pots and the slamming of cabinet doors.

If you’re having trouble following this, here’s an example. My husband says: “I wonder if the box of green tea is empty.” He knows full well that it’s empty, because he used the last bag the previous night. What he really means is: “Do we have more green tea somewhere? If so, dig it out and make me a cup. If we don’t have any more green tea, make me a cup of whatever is closest, and be sure to put green tea on the shopping list.”

Recently I decided to fight fire with fire. I would communicate with my husband the same way he communicates with me. It should come as no surprise that I did not get my desired outcome when I presented him with a vague statement. I then progressed along a scale of communication, gradually getting more specific and more direct. Today’s post explains that scale, with several examples to illustrate the progression. See if you recognize where your spouse sits on the scale. At what point are you generally successful in getting the outcome you desire?

SCALE OF SPOUSAL COMMUNICATION METHODS

1.     Vague description of the condition or situation.

2.     More detailed representation of the condition or situation.

3.     Statement of desired outcome.

4.     Polite request to perform the task.

5.     Outright threat of dire consequences if he doesn’t do it.

Here are some examples.

I want my husband to turn on Meet the Press on TV. This is the progression of how I would try to make it happen, beginning with his own style.

1.     It’s Sunday morning.

2.     Meet the Press should be good this week.

3.     I’d like to watch Meet the Press today.

4.     Will you please turn on Meet the Press?

5.     If you don’t go get the clicker and turn on Meet the Press, I’m not going to make you breakfast. Ever again.

In this example, the desired outcome is to have the trash emptied and put out for weekly pickup.

1.     I just realized that tomorrow is Monday.

2.     The trash bin is overflowing.

3.     The trash needs to go out tonight.

4.     Will you empty the trash and put the bin at the curb for pickup?

5.     I’m tired of reminding you about the trash every week. If you don’t take care of it right now, I’m going to empty the bin onto your laptop.

How about getting him to bring his laundry to the laundry room?

1.     Your underwear drawer must be almost empty.

2.     I bet you have a ton of dirty clothes in your hamper.

3.     I plan to do laundry this morning.

4.     Please bring your dirty clothes to the laundry room.

5.     Empty your hamper or I’m going to cut the toes out of every pair of socks that you own.

Investigating strange noises in the middle of the night?

1.     Did you hear something?

2.     I wonder what that sound is coming from the kitchen.

3.     I think I hear water running in the kitchen.

4.     Will you get up and see if you left the water running in the kitchen sink?

5.     If I have to get up to check the kitchen faucet, I’m going to fill a pitcher with ice water and pour it on your head.

For most things that he wants, my husband is adept at getting his desired outcome without having to progress beyond level two. I’m stuck between levels four and five most of the time. There is no justice in this world.