男女性功能障碍的差异性
男女的性功能障碍除了生理过程的相似性以外，还有某些重要的差别。最近数年来，女权主义学者已经提出供参考的女性性问题新视野。这个文献把女性性问题置于更为广泛的个人关系和社会-文化影响的背景下考察。这些因素对女性性功能发挥所起到的影响比对男性的影响要深得多。甚至于以新女权主义的观点看来，恰恰是这些术语“功能”和“功能障碍”始终是可疑的，因为这些术语似乎使性过于简单化，并且把性满足降低为一个只是技术效率的问题。为了扩展“机能”这个狭隘的概念，这些女权主义学者因此已经新提出了一个女性性不满足及其原因的分类：

就像这个分类系统所显示的那样，所提出的性障碍可能涉及到比现在惯常的性治疗所限定的要多。这个分类也可能要求个体和公众的教育，也需要极大的社会变革。但是，由于本导论性课程的局限性，以下的内容将限定在性功能障碍的生理功能方面。

Female and Male Sexual Dysfunctions -A New Terminology

Differences in Female and Male Dysfunctions
In spite of the physiological similarities of male and female sexual dysfunctions, there are some important differences. In recent years, feminist researchers have offered a new view of women’s sexual problems. It sees these problems in the wider context of personal relationships and socio-cultural influences. These factors play a much greater role in female than in male sexual functioning. Indeed, in the new feminist view, the very words “function” and “dysfunction” are already suspect, since they seem to oversimplify the issues and to reduce sexual fulfillment to a question of mere technical efficiency. In order to broaden the narrow concept of “functioning”, these reseachers have therefore proposed a new classification of female sexual discontents and dissatisfactions:

As this classification shows, addressing the problems may involve more than the now customary sex therapy. It may also require individual and public education as well as a number of social reforms. However, for the limited purposes of this introductory course, the following sections restrict themselves to the physiological aspects of sexual dysfunctions.