SIAD Reflection

In reading through the SIAD wiki page, I began to think about how this diagnosis might be different for the LGBT communities. In particular, I was thinking about one of the sexual events I went to for this class a few weeks ago in which a person told his story about how he self-defines as asexual. I was looking through the DSM criteria for a woman to be diagnosed with SIAD, and almost all of the criteria implies that women should want to be having sex and should be deriving pleasure from it. This made me think about how we have been talking about how so many different populations differ in what they find sexually appealing and what makes sex exciting, but how can all of this be applied to people who aren't even on the spectrum we have created? If a person identifies as asexual would they meet the criteria for a sexual disorder or would they be in a different category entirely?

Another thought I had while reading this blog had to do with the video of Russell Brand talking about porn. I took a particular interest in this video because I wrote my research paper last semester about the effects of pornography on relationships, and found that generally the effects were minimal and not harmful. However, the things Russell Brand was saying about how porn is only capturing one aspect of sex relates to a lot of what I had read about how men and women perceive the effects of porn differently and even use it differently. Overall, I thought this video was a good illustration of some of the main points that researchers have been looking at regarding viewing porn within the relationship construct.

I really liked how well this wiki highlighted the differences in desire for men and women. I have been struggling with the idea that men and women shouldn't be looked at as two entirely different entities so as not to make global generalizations about either group, but more and more evidence is showing that at least sexually, men and women truly are different. Some of the pictures and diagrams helped me to conceptualize how the sexual response cycles and sexual desire levels actually do differ, and it really helped me to be able to accept the different treatment approaches for men and for women.

Lastly, I really enjoyed the section about treating couples presenting with these types of problems in a therapeutic setting. It helped drive home the main points of the whole wiki and to give some practical application ideas for how to actually put these ideas into use. I particularly liked the list of thoughts women have about how men perceive sex, and assume there are just as many thoughts men assume women have about sex. I think this just proves how different people are and that a therapist who makes assumptions would be making a serious error.