Everyone sign this.

Because you know, you just KNOW, that if this gets approved, people are going to start offering it up to female asexuals as some kind of magical “cure” for asexuality!

Damage control update:
I don’t have much time to post on the internet tonight, but I’m just going to copy and paste my response to the debate that’s going on since this went up. I’ll link to where it’s happening later, but first… for context, on livejournal, Jianna posted:

I have to disagree. I don’t think this is going to be used to “cure” asexuality in a big way. Many women are distressed about their lack of sexual interest. This drug is for those women who want to increase their sex drive, often because they used to have a bigger one and it’s since dwindled.

I know it’s a touchy subject for the asexual community, but we really are a very small minority. Many people with low sex drives do see it as a problem and would be glad to have it fixed. This drug is for them, not for us who are content with our states.

Emphasis hers. To which I responded:

Yes, except that this drug does nothing to help those people. It’s being offered as a very much false cure. For everyone, not just asexuals. It will help no one except pharmaceutical companies if this drug gets approved.

I got this link from Emily Nagoski’s blog—she is a sex researcher (who is also coincidentally a faculty sponsor for her university’s asexuality group, if that lends her some favor). I haven’t had much time online tonight, so I just wanted to forward the link very quickly, and in my haste I didn’t point out any of the things she did in her original post. Check it out first before deciding to support this because some people are distressed about having a lower sex drive.

Everyone be sure to check out Andrew’s post about this for more info on the research about the drug, which is, as Emily says, certainly no cause for optimism. And for those of us who care about promoting a change in cultural norms around sexuality to create a healthier, happier world for people of ALL sexual orientations, it is good cause for worry, because all it will do is provide a “shortcut” option that doesn’t really do what it promises to do.

UPDATE #2: I said I’d come back and post links to the discussions when I had time, so here I am. The discussion on the asexuality LJ community is going on here. The AVEN thread, which is much more active, is here. There is also a thread on Apositive here. And because this post has made it way to Google’s top search results about Flibanserin and the FDA, I’m going to keep updating it periodically so that new people coming into the discussion with no previous context or possibly even knowledge that asexuality exists (and is a legitimate sexual orientation—check the FAQs on asexuality.org if you’re confused) can read it and come away with something that’s not just complete and total confusion.

There’s another post up at Asexual Explorations about this now. Go check it out.

UPDATE #3: There’s more discussion of this up now in the comments at Asexy Beast. I also think I should clarify my stance as it’s coming across harsher than I intended it to: I would have absolutely no problem with people who are genuinely distressed about having low sexual desire being treated with a pill for it… but based on the evidence I have seen, it seems that this one is not it. I do also have concerns that the marketing campaign for such a pill would attack asexuals, as well as anyone who is in a circumstance where they legitimately do not want sex because of pressure, coercion, and abuse. However, if this was proven to be very clearly effective for what it is being marketed for, I would support its FDA approval and instead attack the marketing campaign. Because it’s not, though, and because I feel that there is SO MUCH RISK involved with getting this wrong, I’m not comfortable supporting this drug until it has been much more clearly proven to work for what they are saying it does.

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Final Update: The drug was not approved. However, this topic has sparked some interesting communication between asexuals and K of the Feminists with FSD blog, and she has agreed to make a guest post here, which I will post shortly. It is my hope that our two communities can reach out to one another to collaborate, and each community will become safer for the other as a result.