Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license.
Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat.
We can research this topic together.
Hypersexuality, or excessive sexual drive, are medical terms for a desire to engage in sexual activities at a level that is considered abnormally high in relation to normaldevelopment or culture and at a level that causes distress or serious problems for the person affected or to persons associated with them. It is considered to be a psychologicaldisorder characterized by a hyperactive sex desire and an obsession with sex, and lowered sexual inhibitions.
Hypersexuality in women has historically been known as nymphomania or furor uterinus, while, in men, the disorder has been known as satyriasis.
In the American Psychiatric Association's classification of mental disorders, DSM-IV, the term "hypersexuality" has replaced the concepts of "nymphomania" and "'satyriasis", which are no longer listed. However, in the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD), which is used globally, satyriasis (for males) and nymphomania (for females) are still used in ICD-10, the most recent version of that document, as subdivisions of the diagnosis "excessive sexual drive" (code F52.7). For the etymology of the words, see nymph and satyr.
Although the concept of hypersexuality or excessive sexual drive is a common one, some researchers have questioned its legitimacy, arguing that it is merely an attempt to stigmatize persons who do not conform to cultural expectations.
Many Victorian era mental institutions treated nymphomania as an exclusively female mental illness. Women were classified as mentally ill for nymphomania if they were a victim of sexual assault, bore illegitimate children, masturbated, or were deemed promiscuous. Upon arrival at the asylum, doctors would give the woman a pelvic exam. If doctors felt that the woman had an enlarged clitoris, she would undergo treatments. These treatments included induced vomiting, bloodletting, leeches, restricted diet, douches to the head or breasts, and, at times, clitoridectomies.
.svg){kind=small}