Key takeaways:
- Validated sexual health questionnaires administered before the clinical encounter can reduce the time burden of HSDD screening during visits, while a direct symptoms-based approach—asking about pain with sex or interest in sex—normalizes the conversation.
- Patients frequently do not raise sexual health concerns unprompted, assuming clinicians will initiate the discussion if it is clinically relevant—placing the responsibility for opening these conversations on the clinician.
- The cultural visibility of "female Viagra" as a search term, despite declining after 2019, suggests patients are receptive to accessible language around sexual pharmacotherapy and that clinician-led normalization of HSDD terminology could meaningfully expand reach.
Sexual health remains an underaddressed component of routine gynecologic care—and the language gap between how patients search for help and how clinicians describe the condition is one of the most practical barriers to closing that gap, according to Melissa Moran, DO.1
With the prescribing data and search trend findings covered in the first installment, Moran turned to how OB/GYNs can act on those findings in practice—specifically, how to make sexual health conversations fit within time-constrained visits and how to meet patients where they are linguistically.
Time pressure is real, and Moran acknowledged it directly.
"It can definitely be challenging to have in-depth discussions with patients when there are very real time constraints on clinic visits," she said. Her practical solution: Shift as much of the intake work as possible outside the exam room. Validated instruments such as the Female Sexual Function Index, or even a brief yes-or-no questionnaire covering symptoms like vaginal dryness and sexual interest, can be administered in the waiting room before the visit begins.
"That can facilitate and speed up the discussion during the actual visit with the provider," she said.
A symptoms-based approach to initiating the conversation also reduces friction. Asking directly about pain with sex or interest in sex normalizes the topic without requiring a lengthy preamble. Moran cited research showing that patients frequently do not raise sexual health concerns on their own—not because the concerns aren't present, but because of embarrassment or an assumption that clinicians will bring it up if it matters.
"Research has shown that patients often do not discuss their sexual health concerns with providers because they believe that if something is important, their provider will initiate the conversation," she said. That dynamic places the responsibility for opening the door squarely on the clinician.
On the Google Trends data—which showed "female Viagra" far outpacing clinical terminology as a search term, though declining after 2019—Moran offered an unexpectedly optimistic interpretation.
"It seems like this really catchy phrase grabbed people's attention and could potentially have reached people who otherwise might not have investigated symptoms of a low sex drive," she said. That Viagra has become cultural shorthand for sexual pharmacotherapy while clinical terms like HSDD and hypoactive sexual desire disorder remain largely outside public awareness points to an opportunity.
"The more that we talk about hypoactive sexual desire disorder, the more patients we can reach," she said.
REFERENCE
1. Moran M, Sykes J, Velez Leitner, D. Comparison of prescribing and Google trends between bremelanotide (Vyleesi®) and flibanserin (Addyi®) for female hypoactive sexual desire disorder. Presented at: International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health Annual Meeting. February 12-15, 2026. Long Beach, California. Accessed April 21, 2026. Abstract 060
