Sexology and the Pharmaceutical Industry: The Threat of Co-optation

Journal of Sex Research,  August, 2000  by Leonore Tiefer

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Recently, the answers to one yes/no survey question in a large, representative, population-based study of sexual practices (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, & Michaels, 1994) were reanalyzed in a drug industry-supported study to emphasize the prevalence of sexual dysfunction, which was characterized as an "important health problem" in "urgent need for population-based data concerning [its] prevalence, determinants, and consequences" (Laumann et al., 1999, p. 537). The complex statistical manipulations require sophisticated examination, which is probably why the extensive media coverage usually went no farther than quoting the first sentence of the abstract's results, "Sexual dysfunction is more prevalent for women (43%) than men (31%)" (Laumann et al., 1999, p. 537). "Sexual dysfunction," as a single category, is probably as meaningless to a sexologist as "illness" might be to a physician or "ignorance" to an educator, but it is far from meaningless to marketers.

Thus far, sexologists have not challenged the escalating statistics. Perhaps this results from our long-held belief that sexual problems (including but far from limited to sexual dysfunctions) are common, but hidden, and that it would be a better world if people were more able to acknowledge and seek help for their sexual dissatisfactions. Benevolent intentions, however, can be co-opted by industry-related interests to increase market demand, and sexologists must monitor how their data, methods, and interpretations are used.

Resist Oversimplification of Sexuality

Pharmaceutical industry-sponsored sex research treats sex as a far simpler aspect of life than does sexology, a trend in evidence since urologists began to dominate erectile dysfunction discourse at the beginning of the 1990s. In response to the National Institute of Health's 1992 Consensus Development Conference Report on Impotence, sexologist-psychiatrist Bancroft commented, with admirable British understatement, that the report's discussion of psychology was "breathtakingly inadequate" (Bancroft, 1993, p. 205). Similarly, a Dutch psychologist-sexologist pointed out that "In the section on diagnostic procedures 14 lines are devoted to sexual history, and 77 lines to an evaluation of the anatomical and physiological substrate of sexual function," adding, "this is clearly out of balance" (Everaerd, 1993, p. 220).

The trend towards oversimplifying sexuality by ignoring or minimizing the psychosocial aspects is abetted by a dearth of sophisticated sexological research methods, a legacy of the shortage of funding and academic legitimacy discussed earlier. Survey methods are perhaps most advanced, driven by policy interests in sexually transmitted diseases and adolescent pregnancy (Bancroft, 1999). But even highly quantitative methods can explore sexuality as a part of social life, as shown in the important Chicago study (Laumann, Gagnon, et al., 1994). Also, numerous qualitative methods are emerging that will allow better research on relational factors in sexuality. For example, Clement (1999) recently described efforts to analyze and code narratives of sexual interactions as a new way to study sexual scripts, and Gavey and McPhillips (1999) used discourse analysis to examine women's contradictory feelings about condoms. Feminist research, with its emphasis on methods that allow individuals to use their own language and frameworks, will offer insights into sexuality in real life. Phenomenological and narrative research on sex therapy, for example, would make more visible the complexities of sexual relationships and allow sexologists to defend the complexity and range of sexual experience, as well as the central importance of meaning to the experience of sexuality.