Today, people who insist that low sexual desire is a form of medical dysfunction have a convenient ally in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the bible of psychiatric diagnosis in the US. Since 1980, the manual has included a diagnosis that was once called “inhibited sexual desire disorder” and, after changing names a few times, it is now most commonly referred to as hypoactive sexual desire disorder, or HSDD.1 (In the DSM-5, the disorder is split into male and female forms, but let’s stick to general HSDD to keep things simple.)2
