CAPE TOWN, South Africa, July 20 — From the female point of view, male circumcision is either no big deal or a positive improvement, Ugandan researchers said.

• Explain to interested patients that circumcision has been shown to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV for heterosexual men in Africa.
• Note that this study shows that an overwhelming majority of women think their own sexual satisfaction remains the same or even gets better after the procedure.
• Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented orally at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Among women whose partners took part in the landmark circumcision trial in Rakai, Uganda, only a handful reported that the procedure reduced their sexual satisfaction, according to Godfrey Kigozi, MD, of the Rakai Health Sciences Program.

The remaining 97% said their satisfaction was unchanged or improved, he said during a poster discussion session at the fifth International AIDS Society conference on pathogenesis, treatment, and prevention of HIV.

The Rakai circumcision trial is one of three studies that have shown that the procedure reduces the risk acquiring HIV for heterosexual men by more than 50%.

As a follow-up to the Rakai study, Dr. Kigozi and colleagues enrolled 455 women whose partners had the procedure during the trial and asked them to report their sexual satisfaction before and after.

Among the 2.9% who said their sexual satisfaction was reduced, the top two reasons — each reported by six of 13 participants — were lower levels of desire on both sides. (Participants could give multiple reasons, Dr. Kigozi said.)

Among the 39.8% who said things were better, the top reason — reported by 51 of 177 women — was better hygiene.

Interestingly, 45 of the 177 reported better sex because their partner took longer to achieve orgasm — the same reason two unhappy women gave for their dissatisfaction.

Among other reasons for better sex:

• 44 women said their partner wanted sex more often, a reason also given by one woman who was unhappy with her state of sexual satisfaction
• 26 said their partner had less or no difficulty maintaining an erection and 18 said he had less or no difficulty getting an erection in the first place
• 20 said they achieved orgasm more often

The findings are good news because they show that one possible barrier to the widespread use of circumcision to fight HIV — objections from women — doesn’t exist, according to Naomi Block, MD, of the CDC, who chaired a session at which the study was presented.

On the other hand, Dr. Block said, the result is not unexpected — more than a dozen earlier reports had said that women didn’t expect much to change after a partner’s circumcision.

“Women were very positive about it,” she said.

But those reports, she said, were based on interviews with women whose partners had not been circumcised, while the Rakai study involved women with experience both before and after the procedure.

Dr. Kigozi said the finding parallels earlier research on men’s opinions of sexual satisfaction after circumcision, with 97% saying it was either unchanged or better.

Primary source: IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment

Source reference:
Kigozi G et al. “Sexual satisfaction of women partners of circumcised men in a randomized trial of male circumcision in Rakai, Uganda” IAS 2009; Abstract MOPDC104.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.