A woman masturbates, has erotic feelings towards numerous men and women, and an “excessive” desire for sex. Is she a nymphomaniac?

Filmmaker Lars von Trier is reigniting debate on the subject with his controversial new film, Nymphomaniac.

The story of a self-diagnosed nymphomaniac who recounts her erotic experiences, the film consists of four hours of explicit sex. Publicity posters depict the naked A-list cast in orgasmic release, ensuring controversy prior to its Christmas Day release in Copenhagen.

This controversy is bad for women.

Labelling a woman with active sexual desires a nymphomaniac continues an age-old tradition of pathologising women’s sexuality – a tradition that needs to be discarded.

Leeches, borax and bed rest

Descriptions of nymphomania first appeared in the 1700s. But it wasn’t until the late 1800s that the label was made into a psychiatric diagnosis and widely applied to overly sexual women.

“Symptoms” included sexual insatiability, lewd advances to men (or women), and most abhorrent of all, the practice of self-pleasure through masturbation.

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http://theconversation.com/what-makes-a-woman-a-nymphomaniac-20306