By Liah Greenfeld
The July issue of Vogue magazine carries an article on a significant change occurring in the sex-lives of American women. Many of them, the article claims, must now choose between good mood and good sex, and, in some cases, between having a life and having sex altogether. Many, obviously, choose life. Some of the husbands, as one may well expect, object. Such choice must be made because more and more women (over 20 percent at present, the article points out) are suffering from depression severe enough to seek help; they are medicated; and practically all effective anti-depressants have serious sexual side-effects–they destroy libido. Fully one-third of this over-20-percent of sexually active American women on antidepressants are deprived of sexual pleasures as a result. One thinks with sympathy about American men too, who also often suffer from depression, take medications, and suffer from similar side-effects. Since the 20 percent or so of depressed women do not completely overlap with the 20 percent or so of depressed men, it stands to reason that more than one-third of 20 percent in each group are deprived of sex and its pleasures as a result of medication. Add to this that untreated depression does not encourage sexual activity either, because it discourages any activity, and that it prevents enjoying sex, because it makes any enjoyment impossible, and we end with a pretty large group of people, women and men, who are, we may say, sexually disabled. Of course, they suffer from this disability.
Liah Greenfeld 