Dallas Videofest 2009 - Orgasm Inc.

Teresa Gubbins, says:

There's something appealing and simplistic in the idea of finding a pill to solve all our problems, and that includes the "problem" of women who don't achieve the kind of orgasm presented in popular culture -- you know, the elusive scenario where gal + guy hit it at the same moment with a crash of cymbals in the background.

<em>Orgasm, Inc.</em> is a thorough, often witty look at the efforts made by pharmaceutical companies to turn that "problem" into a disease so they can fabricate a pill to give us that'll generate profits for them.

Filmmaker Liz Canner covers all the bases: from interviews with companies making the drugs, to women who feel like they're not normal because their sex lives aren't like what they've seen on TV. She finds likable experts who question the pharmaceutical companies, and follows them to the movie's climax when the FDA conducts its review of Intrinsa, the questionable testosterone patch developed by Procter &amp; Gamble. (The FDA ended up rejecting it in 2004; it has since become available outside of the U.S.)

She weaves in history and data such as the fact that clinical trials funded by pharmaceutical companies have 3 to 5 times the odds of reporting a favorable outcome for the drug being tested than those funded by other sources; that 80% of women have some kind of "body issue"; and that genital plastic surgery is on the rise. Her visits to a college class and to the Antique Vibrator Museum in San Francisco show how conflicted and ignorant many of us are when it comes to basic information about sex.

Nice piece of work.