Sex Talk Still Stigmatized in the Doctor's Office

a woman talking to her doctor. — Embarrassment may keep gynecologists from speaking with their patients about sexual problems.

(Image credit: Monkey Business Images | Shutterstock)

Gynecologists and other doctors are not talking enough with their female patients about sexual problems and sexuality in general, leaving many women to suffer in silence, a new study concludes. Based on a survey of obstetrician-gynecologists across the United States, the researchers found that less than half of them routinely ask their female patients about sexual problems. At the same time, the researchers noted from past studies that about a third of young and middle-age women have some sort of issue related to sexual intercourse, such as pain, low desire or lack of pleasure.

Such sexual dysfunction not only can lead to worry, shame, guilt and feelings of isolation for a woman, but can put a real strain on relationships, the researchers said.

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Lindau, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Chicago Medicine, and her colleagues gauged sex talk in the doctor's office by surveying more than 1,150 practicing U.S. physicians who listed OB-GYN as their primary specialty. They answered questionnaires by mail between October 2008 and January 2009. The doctors were asked to indicate how often (routinely, sometimes, rarely or never) they discussed the following with their patients: sexual orientation; sexual satisfaction; pleasure with sexual activity; and sexual problems or dysfunction.

About 25 percent of the doctors said they have expressed disapproval of patients' sexual practices; these were primarily doctors who were foreign medical graduates or ones who considered religion the most important part of their lives, the researcher said. Those who indicated a Roman Catholic religious affiliation were significantly less likely than others in the survey to ask patients about sexual activity.

But sex talk may be just what a female patient needs. Past research has suggested general adult sexual education is lacking. "Most adults just don't have the basic education about their bodies, the bodies of their sexual partners, relationships, sexual behaviors," Michael Reece, a professor of health at Indiana University, told LiveScience in 2011. "We really have this deficit, I would say, across the country."

Jeanna Bryner is managing editor of Scientific American. Previously she was editor in chief of Live Science and, prior to that, an editor at Scholastic's Science World magazine. Bryner has an English degree from Salisbury University, a master's degree in biogeochemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Maryland and a graduate science journalism degree from New York University. She has worked as a biologist in Florida, where she monitored wetlands and did field surveys for endangered species, including the gorgeous Florida Scrub Jay. She also received an ocean sciences journalism fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a firm believer that science is for everyone and that just about everything can be viewed through the lens of science.