[Position of sexual medicine in medical specialties]

The position of sexual medicine among the different medical subspecialities is discussed. Sexuality is seen under its socio-communicative, reproductive and lust-aspects which in turn influence specific characteristics of sexual medicine, as e.g. its biopsychosocial way of thinking, its focus on the couple, the alloying of different forms of therapy and especially the stressing of the communicative meaning of sexual behaviour as a form of non-verbal communication. Hence therapeutic interventions aim at the restoration of the sexual relationship as a means of fulfilling fundamental needs and desires as for acceptance, warmth, security and so on and thus exceed the cure of the sexual dysfunction. Sexual Medicine should be integrated into the study of medicine as a subject of its own.