Female Viagra, anybody?
If it were up to me, this alleged miracle drug would have a sexy name. Volcano Minx. Sex Ballad. Midnight Tigress.
And yet, here we are, with a sexual dysfunction drug for women called ‘Flibanserin’ on its way to being approved by the Food and Drug Administration of the Unites States.
Basically, if this little pink pill proceeds to the next round of bureaucratic thumbs up, it could be available as soon as the 18th of August.
Sounds great, right? The first pill for struggling lady-libidos! Finally, pharmaceutical companies pay attention to female sexuality! A teeny, tiny, pea-sized feminist triumph! Let’s all get some! First round’s on me! Everyone gets to be Samantha Jones!
No, no, no. Sadly, no. Cool your vulvas for a moment, girls.
Hold off on baking those celebratory nipple cupcakes. This drug actually isn’t really like Viagra at all. A little like the human psyche or society’s general nonchalance towards the clitoris, it’s more complex and more frustrating.
Viagra for men is fast and easy.
It’s a chemical solution for a physical problem. When a man struggles to rise to the sexy occasion, he can pop a little blue pill that stimulates blood flow to his penis, and off he goes.
Currently, by the way, dudes can choose from 26 Viagra-like drugs to treat erectile dysfunction. Like any medication, they have serious potential side effects, including blindness and a rather dramatic sounding event called ‘penil rupture’. But dudes got options. Their sexual dysfunction needs have been well and truly met by the pharmaceutical industry.
This alleged female equivalent is very different. Libido-challenged women have to swallow their little pill every day for a long time to boost their levels of dopamine and norepinephrine.
It could take weeks, months, or even years to notice an increase in sexual desire. And even then, there’s no definitive way to measure that change from a medical perspective. Over that period of time, any number of factors could affect a woman’s sexual desire.
So the organ we’re talking about treating here is the brain. And that’s cool, that’s great — there’s ample evidence to suggest that lack of sexual desire is psychological. And of course we have the enduring idea that sex, for women, is a psychological experience rather than a primal or physical one. And therefore not something that can likely be treated across the board with just one pill.
For the love of orgasm, if we are going to talk about female libido, let’s do it properly.
Let’s be very clear. Despite our secret, sexy hopes, this Flibanserin drug is not Viagra For Women.
It’s not something we can carry in our clutches for raunchy emergencies. It’s not a party trick to help us get wet faster, last longer, or go harder in bed. It can’t be used for fun, or for individual sexual encounters.
Maybe someday, science permitting, we’ll get our very own Viagra-like situation. Who knows, maybe we’ll even call it Sex Ballad. It could make women happier, relationships stronger, and this world a generally raunchier place. But right now, anyone who says Flibanserin is that drug… is prematurely excited.
Would you get excited for a female Viagra?
Did you like this? Then you might want to read…
The female libido fairy. Rare. Endangered. Fragile.
Jean Kittson: “A woman’s libido is complex. It can go for all sorts of reasons.”
The surprising stories behind “sexy” pictures. Everybody sexts.
A record number of teenage girls are going to doctors with injuries sustained during sex.
Kate Leaver is a London-based freelance writer, and previously senior editor at Mamamia. She writes about feminism, social justice, famous people, Harry Potter, boy bands, and important things. She is known to occasionally be funny, and is working on a book about madness.
Top Comments
Why are people assuming women are doing this for men and to keep up with their sex drive? I would love to be having sex every night or close to it. Good exercise and good relationship bonding, but i just have no desire... I remember loving orgasms but I still have no interest.
So I would love to have more of a sex drive for me! I would probably still take a pill (If it was like viagra and worked quickly) on the nights my hubby was away just to have a good time with myself!
What a step backwards! So, instead of encouraging women to honour their own biology and not feel their libido is defective if it doesn't match their man's, we are now medically treating women's libidos to make them more like their man's.
As an alternative, how about science come up with a pill that REDUCES a man's libido, so that it is more in tune with his woman's? Why does the male libido get first priority in a relationship?
The male sex urge is not a woman's problem to solve. Just like menstruation is not a male problem to solve. Women must own their biology, instead of apologising for it and men need to own the frustrations associated with theirs. The notion that it is the wives or female partner's role to relieve their man's sexual urges is archaic and dictates the way women are treated entirely, in our society. Geez, we criticise middle eastern societies for covering up their women so that their men aren't tempted yet we medicalise our own womens' libido so that male sexual needs can be met. What a joke.
This new pill might be ok for women who want to engage in more sex but I guarantee, the pressure it will now put on women, who will be encouraged by their man to 'go see their doctor' if they repeatedly say no, will make it a major back-step in women's progress.
Yep, fully agree.
By your argument, are you against viagra because of all the men that get pressured by their partners to take it? If a woman's husband can no longer maintain an erection, do you tell him to 'own his biology' and ignore the fact that maybe, for himself and his relationship, he'd like to be able to have intercourse again?
Seriously I am so sick and tired of this idea that men always have huge libidos and women just lay back and think of handbags or some nonesense. I would argue that it is your view of women and sex, that women will be forced to put out for their men and not because they want it, not the premise behind this drug, that is archaic and dictates the way women are treated.
Anyone can have a high sex drive. Women have sexual urges just as men do. Women can love sex just as much as men. If either gender were having issues in the bedroom, they can choose to try and remedy that with counselling, medication, or they might be happy with having little sex and can choose to live that way. The choice is theirs, so don't dress this up as some attack on women when what it is trying to do (successfully or not) is provide a medical alternative should a women wish to improve her libido.