Is “unconsummated marriage” still an appropriate term? a snapshot of reality”.

In the middle eastern (MES) and western (WS) societies, sexuality follows different patterns in terms of meaning and rules. Moreover the evolution of societies all around the world created new contexts and kinds of relationship. This could hamper a correct taxonomy of such sexual dysfunctions where social variables are crucial. Aim The aim of the present work is to collect and review data on Unconsummated Marriage (UM) all around the world, to understand if in different societies it refers to the same situation. Method A review of published literature on UM from different areas of the world was conducted. Results Substantial difference emerged from MES to WS. In MES, sexuality is allowed only in marriage, while in WS sexuality and relationship are not strongly linked. This could suggest that the term “marriage” is unable to cover the phenomenon in such different countries. Moreover, the mean time before the consultation, causal attribution and prevalence are very different in such societies. Conclusions We found that the term “Honey moon impotence” could be better to describe male, female or both difficulties related to ignorance about sexuality or state/performance anxiety and typical in MES. On the other hand in WS over the individual category of sexual dysfunctions, we suggest a new term as “Unconsummated relationship”, where individual difficulties are involved creating a couples dysfunction.