Sex and the City sequel put on hold due to lack of interest! Trips to hairdressers dwindle! Sales of paracetamol and chocolate non-existent! X-factor and I’m a celebrity viewing figures crash! Sales of nipple tape soar!
What is this apocalyptic nightmare? Yes, that’s right, ladies. Female Viagra is on its way.
The drug, flibanserin, initially tested as an anti-depressant, has showed “significant improvements” in women who had lost interest in sex. Their libido increased and they had more “satisfactory sexual encounters”. It appears we have a win-win situation. The evocation obviously being, finally women will want it as much as us men and we can move on to a rampant pill-popping lust-filled utopia.
I realize many women will be peeved with a man approaching this subject. And yes I admit I’m not biologically the best person to comment on this. But, I do see myself as a feminist. That I fell out with a feminist lecturer while at university, over a nature and nurture debate, when she revealed that as an anthropological experiment she dressed her son in pink and made him play with dolls, should not cloud your judgement. Besides it was obvious she wanted me.
What I’m here to point out, is that female sexuality is more complex than the male. I don’t think this is news to anyone, but needs repeated none the less. For what we are being sold is a solution in a pill: all in the same week that we realize that dementia drugs are killing more than they’re saving. (Did I just compare women’s lack of libido to Alzheimer’s? Tsk!).
Not since Freud’s dismissal of clitoral pleasure has the female libido been so misunderstood. Looking at female sexuality in binary terms just doesn’t rub. Women, free from the curse of testosterone, depend more on sexual context: relationship background, past sexual experiences and ,dare I say it - for fear of a feminist backlash - emotional involvement.
Moreover, although it may come to a shock to all you sex-crazed men out there who are treating this development with as much celebration as that of the blue pill, women might not want it. A University College Medical School survey found that of the 40 percent of women reporting a loss of sexual desire, only a quarter saw it as a problem.
Yes, that’s right. It’s not a disease to be cured. For women, reduced sexual interest may be a normal biological system at work. Women give coitus the red card for utilitarian reasons; the aggravation, the discontentment and the general pleasure to effort ratio. It’s easier to unwrap a Galaxy than deal with the exertion of the beast with two backs.
So, men, there are women who enjoy sex and if and when they’re ready they will let you know. There are others who simply want to be left alone and grow as human beings, who seek a life of the mind over baser carnal instincts, who will try the pink Viagra when it arrives, and two weeks later offer up those eternal words, “not tonight, love.”
To my regular readers, if I have them, I apologise for this flippant diversion. But Viagra is one of the most searched for keywords on the web, and I’m in a competition here. Viagra! Viagra! Viagra!
Marty McMahon is a finalist in stv.tv's The Write Factor competition. The views expressed are not necessarily those of STV plc. If you would like to read more from this writer, use our comment system below.
Last updated: 19 November 2009, 12:01
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