Penetration as ‘Treatment’

I further my analysis of the concept of ‘sexual dysfunction’ and the boundary between therapy and violence through an examination of the DSM-5 (APA, 2013) diagnosis of ‘penetration disorder’. I critique its pathologisation of non-penetrative sexual activity, sexual avoidance, and vaginal penetrative pain in the context of a longstanding construction of (particularly women’s) sexual ‘frigidity’ as problematic for therapists and heterosexual men alike. I analyse therapies that focus on penetration as ‘treatment’ and their implications for consent and coercion within therapeutic contexts. In addition, then, to analyses of sexual abuse within therapy, I argue that we must also consider how therapy itself can promote and produce further sexual coercion.