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What happened?
When did women start talking about "it?"
This is like a sexual awakening for women!

Women started talking about when they realized there was a little blue pill that was helping men… they wondered where theirs was! As more and more people came forth… more and more women realized they were not the only one feeling dissatisfied.

The first article mentions Viacreme - synonymous with La Crème d'Amour™… but most of the articles below are simply the first brave souls that wrote about the pervasive and personal sexual dysfuncton issues of women.

Being the original and the first female sexual enhancement product to market… we have been blessed by a lot of free publicity. Women's sexual satisfaction is definitely a HOT TOPIC!

Here are just a few of the many articles that have appeared in newspapers across the globe…

Equal Opportunity
Women are eager to participate in the Viagra revolution

The Daily News, August 14, 2001

By LAN N. NGUYEN

Then Viagra hit the market in 1998, it caused a seismic shift in sexual attitudes and expectations. Some 50 million men - Bob Dole included - and 500 million little blue pills later, Viagra has removed erectile dysfunction (ED) from the list of taboo subjects and restored confidence to many men who spent years struggling with ED.

But what about women?

Viagra has changed relationships between couples.

The advent of Viagra has certainly affected women, though not always positively. Wives who had grown accustomed to marriages with infrequent sex have had to deal with their spouses' renewed desire. "Viagra made their husbands want to add intimacy to a relationship that had not been therefor 10 to 15 years," says Dr. Mark Dykowski, a physician at Generations OB/Gyn Center in Birmingham, Mich. "That has put a lot of stress on the relationship."

But other women have responded by demanding their own version of the miracle pill. "Twenty years ago, you didn't talk about this," recalls Dr. Judith Reichman, a gynecologist and author of "I'm Not in the Mood" (Quill, $12). "When women got older and their libido diminished, or when they were in menopause and had dryness, it was not discussed - it was felt that that was the way it was. But the baby boomers don't accept anything. They want a cure."

As a result, the medical and pharmaceutical communities have been encouraged to study female sexual problems. In 1998, a panel of experts arranged female sexual dysfunction (FSD) into the four categories: desire disorders, arousal disorders, orgasmic disorders and pain disorders (including vaginismus, in which penetration is painful, if not impossible).

Despite the new classifications, FSD remains difficult to diagnose and treat.To begin with, physicians and therapists need to consider whether the problem is chiefly physiological or psychological. For example, certain medications, such as anti-depressants, can diminish libido, lubrication and arousal. Hormonal imbalances and illnesses can also have an effect.

"Women are a little more complex than men," says Dr. Virginia Sadock, clinical professor of psychiatry at New York University Medical Center. "It may be the feminization of the brain, that we don't have the same androgen receptors. Also, testosterone is the hormonal basis for libido in men and also in women, and men have more of it."

All in Her Head?

But a woman's feelings about the quality of her relationship or reservations about a partner can also affect her desire, arousal and ability to achieve orgasm. Doctors first need to determine when the problem arose and whether it has been manifested with all partners or just a current one. A woman may also suffer from more than one disorder. Pain during intercourse, for instance, would understandably lead to diminished desire and arousal.

Sadock points out that a dysfunction may also have a cultural explanation: A woman brought up to think sex is dirty is more likely to experience sexual difficulties. Transient sexual disinterest may also be rooted in our deep evolutionary history; sexual dysfunction may have developed as a way to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

A visit to a Web site like drugstore.com can unearth a variety of remedies for diminished arousal - from herbal supplements like horny goat weed to emollients like Viacreme. Other treatments include marital counseling and pelvic exercises. Some women on anti-depressants have switched to Wellbutrin, which has been found not to suppress libido like Prozac or Zoloft do.

A Sexier Future

Pharmaceutical companies are also hard at work looking for the female alternative to Viagra. Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, is still testing the pill on women with FSAD, though results from clinical trials with pre-menopausal and perimenopausal women and postmenopausal women not taking estrogen have been disappointing so far. The pharmaceutical giant is also testing the drug on postmenopausal women undergoing hormone-replacement therapy.

Scientists like the University of Pennsylvania's David Christianson are working with enzymes earlier in the orgasmic chain than those affected by Viagra. He hopes to develop a drug that will block the body's arginase from bonding with L-arginine, an amino acid necessary in making nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is necessary for arousal.

Another possible treatment is NexMed's Femprox, a topical cream in phase two of FDA clinical trials. The study is looking at the effects of alprostadil - a vasodilator well known for treating ED - on premenopausal women. "We know it will dilate and engorge tissues," says Dr. James L. Yeager, vice president of research and development. "We want to know if this will lead to arousal and orgasm. That is something we have to prove."

Also being tested, but as yet unproven, are testosterone patches and Estratest, a hormone-replacement treatment that combines estrogen and testosterone. Tibolone, another hormone-replacement treatment that is a mixture of estrogen, testosterone and progesterone, has already been approved in Europe, but not by the FDA.

While pharmaceutical dollars are funding most of the sexual research, many experts feel a holistic approach may be a better solution for FSD. "It is not going to be so straightforward that some guy will sit in his office in Iowa, ask a woman a few terse questions about her response and hand her medication," says Dr. Laura Berman, co-director of UCLA's Female Sexual Medicine Center and co-author of "For Women Only" (Holt, $25). "Sexuality, especially female sexuality, is more complicated than that."

The Path to Female Orgasm

Sexual arousal begins long before a woman's vagina and clitoris become engorged with blood (with the help of blood-vessel-dilating chemicals like L-arginine and nitric oxide). It can start with a touch, a smell, a thought. "The biggest sex organ in the body is the brain," says Dr. Mark Dykowski. "And there is so little that we understand in the brain about what influences sexual function."

Relatively little is known about a woman's sexual physiology. It was only in 1998 that Australian urologist Helen O'Connell discovered that the clitoris is attached to pyramid-shaped erectile tissue similar to a penis' that extends into the pelvis, making the clitoris twice as large as previously thought.

"We know vasodilators are blood-flow enhancers," says Dr. Laura Berman. "We know that lubrication is a result of the engorgement of genital tissues. We know that women, when they have increased blood flow, have a higher degree of genital sensation. We believe engorgement is an essential part of arousal and helps to facilitate orgasm. But we actually know very little."

The path to orgasm can be as particular as every women. But sexual climax is typically achieved by direct stimulation of the clitoris and surrounding area or from pressure on the vaginal walls and cervix - the "pelvic floor orgasm." Some women swear they have a G-spot, highly sensitive tissue in the front wall of the vagina and below the urethra that is also involved in orgasm.

Unsexy Figures

About 40% of women (versus 30% of men) experience sexual dysfunction, according to a survey reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1999. The survey included 1,921 women and 1,511 men aged 18 to 59 from the University of Chicago and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

38% of women do not achieve orgasm during intercourse, according to a survey of 2,600 women reported in "Women's Sexualities" by Carol Rinkleib Ellison.

Men and women ages 18-29 have sex on average 84 times a year, while 40-year-olds have sex 64 times a year and people 70 and older have sex 9.8 times a year.

Source: American Sexual Behavior report from the National Opinion Research Center and the University of Chicago, 1998

http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-08-14/New_York_Now/Health/a-121619.asp

The Dream Cream That Women Want

The Evening Standard, May 11, 2001

A quick dab here and, er, there and 20 minutes later, fireworks - maybe even a Nasa launch. This is the stuff ladies; what you've all been waiting for. Joy in a jar.

At least that's what Manhattan-based urologist Dr Jed Kaminetsky claims. Behind his desk is a six-inch thick stack of printed e-mail order forms in response to his web-site, www.loveenhancement.com. There's a special introductory offer for $59.99 a tub - around £44 - enough for 10 to 12 applications, with shipping and handling costing $5.95. All major credit cards accepted. Overseas orders not a problem.

Dr Kaminetsky looks tired, poor chap. Perhaps it's all that shipping and handling. Maybe it's because he admits to using his wife as a guinea pig. He is just about to leave for a holiday in Italy. Mrs Kaminetsky is also coming. Sorry, going along with him.

Outside his consulting rooms, high above Lexington Avenue, is a magnificent view of the Empire State Building. It rears up, proud and tall, appropriately.

"Women have felt left out for a long time," said Dr Kaminetsky. He's talking about the revolution ushered in by the anti-impotence drug Viagra which meant never having to say you're sorry, for men at least. With a flash of intuition, he realised Viagra was only treating half the problem.

"Sex is much more difficult for women than men," he said. "A man has sex and he knows how it is going to end. Most women have to work hard for their orgasms. Some never have them at all. Forty-three per cent of women have experienced some form of sexual dys-function. Believe me, 43 percent of men wouldn't put up with that."

So he began experimenting. The first version of the Dream Cream had an engaging schoolboy logic to it. He crushed Viagra into powder and mixed in a gel. Too gritty. The first proper Dream Cream was prescription-only. Later he began developing a diluted version that could be sold over the counter and found, to his surprise, that it worked better. The main ingredient is an amino acid called L-Arginine, which improves the blood supply around the vaginal area but is more commonly found in health food shops as a vitamin supplement.

THE CREAM is odourless, tasteless and has the texture of moisturiser. The jar could sit quite happily in a bathroom cabinet or on a bedside table next to the mascara. Even the cleaner wouldn't guess its secret. Mind you, it might become obvious if she does.

On the streets of New York it did not take long for the world's most assertive women to beat a path to Dr Kaminetsky's website. He sold 900 jars last week by mail order. He claims that the cream is not about to make him a wealthy man, but listen to those cries of ecstasy. And that's only his bank manager.

The cream is not a drug like Viagra. It does not need the approval of the American Food and Drug Administration. Still, some women who experiment with Viagra say they have found it gives them headaches, and some men who take Viagra have had heart-attacks.

Dr Kaminetsky makes no promises for his Dream Cream. He just has the testimony of satisfied customers. Mrs "JD" from Long Island writes: "My husband has to peel me off of him when I use the Dream Cream." A dancer from New York City crows: "My husband wants to buy a truckload of Dr K's Dream Cream. It was out of this world!"

A lot of husbands are also buying the cream, he says. One woman from New Orleans compared sex using Dream Cream to the city's famous gumbo stew. "It's better with a little spice in it, she told me," said Dr Kaminetsky.

The enthusiasm for the product seems to reveal a new mood among women, on the other side of the Atlantic at least. Dr Kaminetsky now treats as many women as men for sexual problems. He is also experimenting with other treatments, particularly testosterone for women about to enter the menopause. Mrs K also helped out with this one. "I gave her a little dab," he said. "She said it gave her a whole new understanding of the male race."

It seems likely that the publicity given to Dream Cream will motivate the major drug companies to bring out rival versions. It looks like the prelude to a multi-billion-dollar business as more and more doctors recognise that women want a good sex life and are prepared to get vocal about it.

"I suppose you'd like a sample," said the doctor as I left. I said I supposed I would. He produced a tiny jar, enough for one application. I suppose you want to know what happened next. Well, the dog has just been sick and the kids are fighting over the TV remote. This stuff is meant to be good, but I don't know if it can raise the dead.

Here's a great article about our product… La Crème d'Amour™ was formerly known as Viacreme™.

Dream Cream
Ointment aims to enhance female orgasms

The Toronto Star

By Daphne Gordon

Come closer, girlfriend, I've got a bit of gossip that could change your life.

Your sex life, that is.

Here's what I learned at a gathering of women in a College St. restaurant recently. If you aren't orgasmic, you could be. If you are, well, your orgasms could be lovelier and more luscious.

At least that's what Toronto distributors of a new orgasm ointment called Viacreme told the 30 or so women (and a few men) who showed up at Giovanna Trattoria. The product, which has been available in the United States since last January, has been trickling into Canada over the past few weeks.

"I've been giving it to every woman I know to try and they've all said, 'Ohmigod! It really works,'" said Beejay Farfanick, one of the ointment's local distributors. The ointment costs $20 and comes in a tiny tube with about four applications per tube.

Not everyone is as enamoured of the product as its distributors claim, though. Sex therapist Dot Whitehouse, who went so far as to try the product, said in an interview she couldn't get to the shower fast enough to wash it off. "It wasn't a pleasant sensation," she said, explaining that it caused swelling in her genital area the first time she tried it. Following the instructions on the product, which advise trying it a few times before expecting a result, Whitehouse applied it again, and found that it didn't have a positive effect on her ability to become aroused or have an orgasm.

She's heard from two clients who have tried it, she adds. One reported that it had no effect, the other said it caused her to have an orgasm more quickly.

She wouldn't advise clients not to try it, she says, because she thinks there's a chance some women may find it helps them, but she doubts that it can live up to its claims. "It's promising an awful lot, and I don't understand how it can help a woman who isn't able to have orgasms. If she feels she's ugly, or she feels she smells, or she feels she's no good in bed, how is this going to help her?"

The women touting Viacreme at the restaurant gathering say it might not be the answer for everyone but it will help a lot of women have a better time in bed.

"It's kind of the same science as Viagra," said Farfanick, but because the active ingredients in the clear gel - menthol and an amino acid called L-arginine - are not controlled substances, the cream is available without a prescription. (Also, Viagra is ingested, while Viacreme is applied externally.)

An information packet that comes with the product explains that when a pea-sized amount of the gel is applied to the clitoral area, tissue surfaces are stimulated, resulting in increased blood flow and dilation of the blood vessels. That apparently translates into a firmer clitoral erection.

"It's a more intense experience for most women," said Mickey Burns, another of the product's local distributors. Burns has been using it for about two months.

"I had no complaints before, trust me," Burns told the gathering, which ranged in age from early 20s to late 50s. "The first time I tried (Viacreme), nothing. The second time, not bad. But the third time - and I'm not usually a screamer - I screamed ... It was involuntary."

Burns explained that between two and six applications of the cream are required before a woman begins to feel its full effect. And the application must be exact.

"The first time I tried (Viacreme), nothing. The second time, not bad. But the third time . . . I screamed"

"I had to get my boyfriend to put on his glasses," she said, explaining that the cream should be applied to the underside of the clitoris so that the active ingredients can pass through a mucus membrane located there.

(Don't worry guys. It comes with a diagram.)

Of course, stimulation is still required, and the cream affects every woman differently. "If you're healthy and orgasmic, this product really can create a more intense orgasm. But if you are menopausal, post- menopausal or have health problems, you might not get as much effect as quickly," said Burns, adding that some drugs, including the birth control pill, can also decrease a woman's libido.

Viacreme was invented by American doctor Ron Thompson and is manufactured in the U.S. by Lexxus International and marketed through independent distributors such as Farfanick and Burns. As well as the mainland U.S. and Canada, the cream is available in Puerto Rico, New Zealand and Australia.

According to distributors at the Toronto event, Lexxus expects to launch the cream in 22 more countries in the next year and have a million distributors in place.

"I'm sitting on a gold mine," Farfanick said after his presentation. "Women are what, 54 per cent of the population? And they've been totally ignored."

In fact, in the several years since the prescription drug for men, Viagra, came on the market, women have been clamouring for attention. When the U.S.-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer launched Viagra in the spring of 1998, some women tried popping the pill to see if had the same effect on them as it did on their men - essentially, unstoppable arousal. But early studies on women who have taken Viagra suggest that they may be even more prone to the drug's potentially dangerous side effects than men.

In the last few years, several companies have been marketing products containing L-arginine, a sexual enhancer, in both topical and oral applications, They're available by mail order and go by names such as Libido Blast, Dream Cream, Lady-Vi, Via Max, Argin-Max, Vivace and Natural Sensations. All make similar claims.

L-arginine's efficacy as a sexual enhancer is supported by a clinical study, which was published in the Journal Of The American Medical Association. In the double-blind study, women with sexual dysfunction were placed on a four-week course of the oral L-arginine supplement Argin-Max or on a placebo.

At the end of the study, 76 per cent of the participants who took Argin-Max reported increased sexual desire, compared to 38 per cent in the placebo group. Fifty-two per cent in the active group said they had more frequent orgasms, compared to 25 per cent in the placebo group. There were no reported side effects.

And menthol has its fans as a sexual stimulant for women. On the Internet, aficionados of sadomasochistic sex mention it more than once, and it's suggested as something to try during oral sex (sucking on a menthol candy, for example), for an icy-hot sensation.

Viacreme's detractors include sex therapist Judith Golden, who says she won't recommend the product to her clients. Though she admits that some women might find that the lotion enhances the sexual experience, she feels it is too expensive. And she says she's been put off by the aggressive marketing techniques used by its distributors. Golden says she's been contacted by at least 12 agents who want her sell it to her clients or sign her up as a distributor.

Golden says she'll stick with the more traditional methods of helping women who have orgasm anxiety - dealing with the psychological issue of not being able to "let go" and teaching masturbation techniques.

Neither will sex therapist Joan Marsman suggest Viacreme to her clients. "I don't think there's any quick fix for the problem," she says. "I wouldn't want women to think this was a quick fix. Your connection to your sexuality is emotional and mental as well as physical."

"The . . . reason women don't have orgasms is because men don't put the time in"

Like Golden, Marsman says she takes a more holistic approach to helping women achieve orgasm. (She runs a twice-yearly workshop on the subject called Awakening Your Sexual Self. For information, call 416-766-8982.)

Other sceptics of Viacreme include men, at least judging by the reaction of the few who showed up for the presentation at Giovanna Trattoria. One left the room before the end, and the other had a few challenging questions for Burns and Farfanick.

"You're saying that once a woman tries it, she won't wanna go back?" asked a 37-year-old man, who later identified himself as Ali. "Doesn't a woman give up part of her sexuality by saying: 'Without it, I'm nothing?' Once you give it up, then what?"

"Well, it's kind of like toast dry, or toast with butter," replied Burns. Sometimes, she said, she and her partner have sex without Viacreme and the orgasms are fine, just not as spectacular as they are with it.

"For me, when I use the cream, (the orgasm) isn't as centralized. It goes all the way down to my ankles (and into my arms). The build is very intense, and that point where you're on the precipice of having an orgasm lasts longer."

Burns' says the cream doesn't threaten her partner. In fact, she says, he's also a distributor. But she often finds that men resist, even after they hear that the cream has no taste and doesn't directly affect their sexual experience.

There was certainly no convincing Ali, who shared conversation and chocolate martinis with a group of women after the presentation.

"Personally, I'd feel weird that a woman may need a tool," he said. "Isn't what I do enough? I would feel like I was doing something wrong if she needed it." Viagra is different, he insisted, because men take it with the intention of pleasing a woman. (Yeah, right.)

The reaction among women at the gathering was mixed.

"I'm open to trying it," said Lina, a 29-year-old who's just about to get married. "I'm very excited to be taking it on my honeymoon," she said.

And Adrienne, a 40-year-old travel consultant, was also excited about giving the cream a try, but pointed out that it doesn't mean a man can stop doing his part. "The biggest reason women don't have orgasms is because men don't put the time in," she said, speculating that some men might see Viacreme as an excuse to not bother with foreplay.

"I don't know if I'd be willing to try it," said Connie, a 37-year-old hairstylist. "Right now I guess I don't need it. And what kind of effect does it have over the long term?"

Farfanick and Burns assured the women that the cream, which does not require approval by Health Canada because it makes no medical or health claims in its packaging or literature, was tested for two years in the U.S. with the help of obstetric and emergency room nurses.

There were no reported side effects, although the cream can cause an uncomfortable burning sensation in women who are unaware they have chlamydia or a yeast infection. Women with a history of herpes should also avoid L-arginine products.

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