Review of Orgasm Inc. (2009) by Edith N — 05 Feb 2013

Doesn't Quite Make It to the Finish Line.

It isn't easy to make a really moving documentary about most subjects. This is the real reason Holocaust documentaries win so many Oscars; it's hard to make a documentary about the Holocaust that isn't compelling. (Though goodness knows I've seen it done.) There is a movement away from talking heads, and I think that's a good thing, but I don't like the direction a lot of filmmakers are choosing to take. In this one, for example, there was the ongoing conceit of the "race to FDA approval" for a Female Sexual Dysfunction medication. To demonstrate this, the film shows a little pink-coloured Viagra pill, among others, on little tiny legs running up a giant bed to a finish line at the pillow. It's silly the first time, and it doesn't get less silly as the film progresses. There's a lot of good material here, and I think there are interesting things said about our culture. I just don't think they're said very well.

Obviously, we're dealing with an issue that goes way back; the film includes a brief stop at a museum of antique vibrators, something I wish I'd seen on my last trip to San Francisco. However, the problem has moved on from "hysteria." Now, the issue stems from women who don't have "hysterical paroxysms," as they were once called, either during intercourse or at all. It has been medicalized as Female Sexual Dysfunction, an overarching diagnosis that covers nearly half of all women in its broadest definition. Obviously, the company that can come up with an FDA-approved treatment for the condition will rake in billions. However, there is the not inconsiderable problem that women's orgasms are a bit more complicated than male erectile dysfunction is, and indeed, there is considerable debate over whether or not the condition even truly exists. As of the release of this film, none of the contenders had made it across that badly animated finish line in the US, though one is approved in the EU under certain conditions.

So why aren't they sure it's a real condition? Well, one of the people interviewed was in a trial group for an electric box that was supposed to stimulate orgasm. Only it didn't. And then, she had one little statistic explained to her that made her realize she didn't even have a problem. You see, she was concerned because she wasn't having orgasms during penetrative intercourse. The statistic? Neither do at least seventy percent of women. She didn't have a medical condition; she was completely normal. It wasn't that she never had orgasms at all; it's just that she didn't have them when she thought she was supposed to. That's the thing; that forty-seven percent or whatever of women with this new condition includes women who [i]have[/i] orgasms, but not during intercourse. Rather than a pill, they clearly just need a map to give to their lovers. Or directions. Or something. There was a way around the problem, and it didn't require a prescription.

One person in the film is shown insisting that people shouldn't take medications for anything, and I think that's just as wrong. After all, some women diagnosed with the condition have [i]painful[/i] intercourse, and that's a thing worth examining as well. It's actually possible that some small fraction of these women have a real medical problem. Others just need to understand their own bodies better, or they need lovers who do, or both. However, by lumping such disparate problems together, anyone who "solves" it with a drug can make a lot more money. Yes, it's in the best interests of the sex toy store owner to convince people that all they need is the proper toy. However, she won't make as much in the long run as the pharmaceutical companies. There are also no long-term negative effects to her products, which cannot be said for various of the other options people put forward over the course of the film. At least one is just horrific to me.

That one, which is pretty much the only one widely available in the US, is surgery. It isn't just that director Elizabeth Canner insists that women who had their labia reduced for being too long (is this a worry normal people have?) now look more like children. It isn't even just the story of the woman who could have died when one of her sutures popped. It's that we're working so hard to try to get other countries to [i]stop[/i] performing unnecessary surgery on female genitalia, and it's becoming big business in the Western world. The film states that 80% of women have body issues. However, it doesn't distinguish between women like me, who legitimately have weight problems, with women who actually care if their labia match some standard that I didn't even know existed. There is good material here, and it could be interesting to have a dialogue on how women's sexuality has been treated by the predominantly male medical establishment. However, this movie is trying too hard to be flashy and interesting. I thought all you needed for that was sex.