Prevalence of women's sex problems overestimated, study says.

2003 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A new study suggests sex researchers have been overestimating the prevalence of sexual problems in women for years - perhaps because they have been looking at things from a man's point of view.

The Kinsey Institute study found that a quarter of American women are significantly distressed about their sex lives - far less than the 43% a 1999 study labeled as suffering from sexual dysfunction.

Research on the topic has tended to focus on physical aspects of sex, such as orgasms and arousal. But the new study found that the best predictors of a woman's sexual satisfaction are her general emotional well-being and her emotional relationship with her partner.

"This study emphasizes the importance of nonphysiological components of sexuality as well as the general importance of mental health," said John Bancroft, director of the Indiana University-based Kinsey Institute. "It's not conclusive, but it counterbalances what I believe to be the rather extraordinary conclusion that 43% of women suffer from sexual dysfunction."

The Kinsey study, which will appear in the June 2003 issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior, was a random telephone survey of 853 women, ages 20-65, who had been in a heterosexual relationship for at least 6 months.

Among other things, it found that 24.4% of those women reported "marked distress" about their sexual relationship, their own sexuality or both, within the previous month.

That contrasts with a University of Chicago study that questioned more than 1700 women, ages 18-59. That 1999 study found 43% of women reported having one or more persistent symptoms of sexual dysfunction, such as a lack of desire for sex, during the previous year.