Female Speaker: HSDD is Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder. It is the most common sexual problem for women affecting about one in ten of all women. It is defined as the loss of or absence of sexual thoughts, interests, fantasies, all sexual interest is gone and it creates distress. So this disorder is very common yet often under diagnosed because number one, women don't really know that its a legitimate medical condition, they don't know that there is name for it and healthcare professionals have not really been encouraged to talk to their patients about this. So we now actually have a website www.sexandahealthieryou.org that can really be very helpful for all women, so that they can learn more about the disorder, more about sexual health, and even develop some tools to talk to their healthcare professional about this.

This is such an exiting time for women's sexual health research. There are two important studies being presented at the international society for women sexual health. The first is the desire study, which is characterizing over 5,000 women internationally who have loss of sexual desire with associated distress. So this information is validating what we have known clinically for a very long time which is that these women not only have loss of sexual interest but it affects their overall life that is, they feel guilt, they are experiencing despair, they have loss of self esteem, it's affecting their relationships. So we know that loss of sexual desire has an huge impact on women's lives and quality of life. The other study that's being presented is actually a study about the registry of women who actually have diagnosed hypoactive sexual desire disorder. So this registry is following about fifteen hundred women over the next four years so we can learn more about this disorder.

The key feature for women to understand as hypoactive sexual desire disorder is going to be the complete loss of any spontaneous sexual interest. That even if they use to be receptive to sexual activity, they no longer own it or they could sort of have a sexual thought or dream or a fantasy all of that is gone. These women have complete loss of sexual interest. So what we know of as hypoactive sexual desire disorder really is complete loss of sexual interest.

Sex is a legitimate concern for women and women should feel free to go to their healthcare professional to talk about it. If they have any sexual concerns even sexual questions, it is their healthcare professionals that should be the first person they go to and unfortunately many healthcare professionals may not feel comfortable talking about sex either and for them I would say, you know what find a new healthcare professional and to get the tools to be able to talk about this, I would suggest that women go to www.sexandahealthieryou.org for some simple ways to bring up the topic to understand what the disorder is and to know they are not alone in this because almost 10% of women have hypoactive sexual desire disorder.