by Sophie M.

Montreal is home to many a film festival, all unique in their own way. Now that Cinemania is over, we can focus on another type of film: the documentary, with the Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal. Last night, I was lucky enough to catch the screening of Orgasm Inc., an excellent documentary touching on a topic many know about but few dare to discuss: Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD).

In this film, filmmaker Liz Canner accidentally falls into the world of FSD when taking a job editing videos for a pharmaceutical company years ago. The videos are for a drug trial – a drug that this pharmaceutical company hoped would win FDA approval to treat FSD, then a new disease. Suspicious of this “condition” which was being classified as an illness, the curious Liz started filming the pharma company and researching the topic, only to discover an ugly truth: were diseases being “invented” in order for big pharma to make more cash? Nine years later, she has her answer. Enter Orgasm Inc.

This documentary is witty and entertaining. Who doesn’t love watching a high-level pharma exec struggle to explain a condition when she is supposed to be finding the cure? But there is also a darker, more saddening side to it. Liz’s main argument is that, while some women may genuinely have a sexual dysfunction, she doesn’t believe that FSD has actually been proven to be a disease, therefore making it difficult and even dangerous to treat it. It’s what she calls the “medicalization of a condition”. The film reviews other treatments in development for FSD including the use of Viagra with women (I’ll be damned if I ever pop a pill that helps men have erections!), a nasal spray (I never thought putting a spray up my nose could help me have better sex), a testosterone patch (which, thank God, didn’t get approved by the FDA in North America), and surgical procedures like vagina lifts, labia reductions, etc. Can you imagine telling your doctor you need a vagina-lift? I just can’t.

This film, although only a snapshot into the warped and dangerous world of pharmaceuticals, is truly eye-opening. How can we, as a society, buy into all these ideas of pill-popping for a better life? But we can, and we do. And it’s sad, especially when linked to a “disease” which is characterized by a tired woman who maybe, just maybe, had a long day taking care of the kids, working a full-time job, and doesn’t feel like having sex. Well if that is considered a disease, then I may very well be suffering from it. Much like three quarters of the female population world-wide.

Orgasm Inc. is screening again on Wednesday November 18 as part of the Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal. I strongly recommend you go see it. And if you can’t make it to the screening, it’s also playing on CBC Sunday night (Nov. 22).

For more info, check out orgasminc.org and ridm.qc.ca.