THE PARADOXICAL NATURE OF SEXUALITY IN ANOREXIA-NERVOSA

Psychosexual dysfunctioning is often put forward as an etiological fac tor in anorexia nervosa. In contrast, we hypothesize that anorexia ner vosa patients were in general psychosexually normal before their illne ss, and that the problems in their sexual life arise only after the em ergence of hypogonadism, as a consequence of emaciation. Our study sho ws that patients, before they became anorectic, were indeed rather sim ilar to normal subjects with respect to sexual attitude. Moreover, pat ients reported a considerably decreased sexual interest during their a norectic period when compared with normal controls. We conclude that t hese results corroborate our hypotheses. In the discussion we sketch a theoretical account of the origin and course of anorexia nervosa, acc ording to which the hormonal and associated psychosexual changes are c entral to is pathogenesis.