Woman With Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder Calls Media Attention "Brutal" and "Agonizing"
Kim Ramsey and Jeff Probst
A woman who went public about her struggle with Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder this last summer calls the resulting media attention "brutal" and "agonizing" on a new episode of The Jeff Probst Show Wednesday.
Kim Ramsey went public with the condition, which causes her to continually experience the sensation of orgasm without any sexual arousal, in the summer of 2012 in hopes of educating others about the rare illness and connecting with others suffering from the condition. However, she called the resulting article "tasteless" and says she has since felt shame and ridicule.
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After the story came out, "friends dropped me, family members stopped speaking to me, people who I work with snickered behind my back or snickered in my face," she tells Probst on Wednesday's show. "Getting recognized in the street, that kind of stuff, having reporters outside your front door, having people write your home and tell you that you're possessed with evil spirits. I went from being a regular person to a notorious person and I've done nothing wrong other than have something that is a medical condition."
Ramsey discussed the trauma associated with the condition when talking to Probst, saying she knows of two other women who committed suicide because of their similar struggles. "There are many women that have this, but are too embarrassed to talk about it. Some people are on an online group and they're anonymous because they just don't want to be attached to it," she says. "I feel like, as a woman, there are certain things that we can't talk about yet in society. Unfortunately, for women, we have different constraints; socially not acceptable; religious constraints. A woman really shouldn't be talking about things like this. I'm very fortunate that my primary care physician did a tremendous job with listening to me."
The condition was featured on Grey's Anatomy back in Season 2.
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