This paper offers a critical feminist analysis of the biomedical conceptualization of women's sexual desire. The five major features of the biomedical model of female sexual desire examined and critiqued are: 1) use of the male model as the standard, 2) use of a linear model of sexual response, 3) biological reductionism, 4) depoliticalization, and 5) medicalization of variation. A "New View", an alternative to the biomedical model, is offered for reconceptualizing women's sexual problems. This analysis concludes with recommendations for feminist-based biopsychosocial research.

The purpose of this feminist grounded theory study was to understand the meaning and experience of postmenopausal women's sexual desire. Data collection from 22 postmenopausal women who were ongoing participants of the TREMIN Research Program on Women's Health occurred via audiotaped, telephone-based, semistructured interviews. Women's descriptions of their sexual needs and desires led to the discovery of the core category, negotiating sexual agency, which refers to women's ability to act on behalf of their sexual needs, desires, and wishes. Women negotiated their sexual agency within three main domains (or axial codes): their own sexual self, their partners, and the medical system. An important finding was women's internalization of sociocultural assumptions that privilege their male partners' sexual needs over their own. The findings of this study, especially the contexts in which women negotiate their sexual agency, are important for women, women's health care providers, and women's life partners to understand.

Wood offers a new conceptual framework, “the menstrual concealment imperative”, to explain how women’s internalization of menstrual discourse contributes to their disembodiment and self-objectification through menstrual “management”. This chapter critiques the medical system and menstrual hygiene industry for the (bio)medicalization of menstruation that establishes women as diseased and as unable to know their bodies. Wood suggests that women’s vigilance about menstrual concealment is not freely chosen, but a required self-disciplinary practice rooted in menstrual discourse that characterizes menstruation as stigmatized, taboo, and therefore shrouded in secrecy. The concealment imperative is a form of social control and a body project that keeps women disembodied and objectified. As a conceptual tool it has implications to understand the various ways that women’s bodies are regulated both at individual and social levels.

The purpose of this descriptive, qualitative study was to explore young adult women's conceptualizations of their menstruation experiences using a feminist approach. Grounded theory was used to understand how 15 college-aged women (ages 18-22 years, 86% white) evaluate their menstrual patterns as "normal" or "abnormal." Data analysis of the semi-structured interviews revealed four themes that the women used to judge the pattern of their menstruation (i.e., interval, duration, discomfort, and volume) as normal: (1) Pattern resembled learned norms, (2) consistent pattern discordant from learned norms, (3) predictably variable pattern, and (4) absence of problems. Two distinct themes informed their decisions to consider a menstrual pattern as abnormal: (1) Unpredictable variability, and (2) extreme experiences. The core variable emerging from data analysis, establishing a personal norm, illuminated the two major sources that women relied on in trying to interpret their menstrual patterns: the limited and often inaccurate information that they had been taught and their own menstrual experiences. Implications include the need to improve education about menstrual variability throughout the life cycle and about the diversity of women's normal menstrual patterns and experiences.

The results of the 5 available double-blind, placebo-controlled studies (and 1 open-label, 6-month extension) showed that eszopiclone was safe and effective in the treatment of transient and chronic insomnia in adult and geriatric patients. Tolerance with long-term exposure (6 mo) and rebound insomnia were not observed. The results of the 6-month, open-label extension trial demonstrated that improvements in sleep parameters were sustained. Future studies comparing eszopiclone with other non benzodiazepine sedative-hypnotics (eg, zolpidem, zaleplon) are needed with cost data to clearly define the role of eszopiclone in the pharmacotherapy of chronic insomnia.