The University of Chicago study, which has been touted as the most comprehensive sex survey since the Kinsey report in 1948, reported that 43 percent of women and 31 percent of men suffer from sexual dysfunction. But the news is not all bad, sex experts say. While physical conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, stress and prostate cancer are often the culprits behind sexual dysfunction, the majority of cases are psychological and easily treatable. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study reported that lack of sexual desire, arousal difficulties, the inability to achieve orgasm, performance anxiety, premature ejaculation and pain during intercourse were among the problems. But there are other difficulties, therapists say.
Sex therapists say they treat as many individuals as couples.
And the types of clients they treat are often those who would be least expected to need help. But a lot of them are not satisfied with their sex life either,'' said Maltz, who has been deluged with calls from unsatisfied lovers since the survey's release. Maltz, who once counseled a couple who were having problems consummating their four-year marriage, said it's most often a lack of education that causes problems. Virginity, premature ejaculation, impotence, inhibited ejaculation and lack of desire are the conditions that bring couples and individuals into sex-therapy centers the most, experts say. Often, sex therapists begin treatment by taking sex out of the equation.