Female Viagra
December 17, 2009
Who knew my crystal ball would be so clear? Last month’s predictions about sexual immortality for women are now just around the corner. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Flibanserin (so new my computer treats it with the same semantic nonchalance as Andropause) or Female Viagra could be on store shelves within two years, according to a recent article in the Daily Mail. If you want to get that special stocking stuffer or holiday gift that keeps on putting out for future holiday seasons, I suggest you order now, because these little pills are going to go like proverbial hotcakes.
According to statistics I cannot seem to confirm, around a quarter of all women in Britain suffer from low libido. With such a number in the sexual doldrums, Flibanserin is predicted to be at least as successful as Viagra, with worldwide sales reaching more than £2billion per year. Flibanserin was originally designed to treat depression. However, large scale clinical trials quickly showed that “Women who take Flibanserin once a day have sex more often and enjoy it more.” Upon realizing its effect on the depressed female libido, the German manufacturers, Boehringer, are poised and ready to cash in.
Flibanserin’s origins are similar to those of Viagra which was initially designed as a heart medication. However, as the male penis and heart are so closely intertwined, we can easily see how researchers quickly discovered its potential for combating erectile dysfunction in men. As depression is one of the major causes of low libido in both men and women, it is also easy to see how researchers found the correlation between Flibanserin and its sexual benefits for women.
Although both of these gender respective excitants share a common history and produce similar results, the way they work on men and women is different. While Flibanserin and Viagra both stimulate sexual arousal, Flibenserin takes several weeks for the effect to build up, meaning it cannot simply be ‘popped’ on demand as can Viagra.
There are also different risks and side effects of taking these drugs. While females who take Flibanserin won’t run the risk of an eight hour erection that warrants a call to the local fire department, it is certainly not free of side effects. The articles mentions that “…[U]p to one in eight of the women taking part in trials dropped out due to dizziness, fatigue and sleep problems.” If the same tests were conducted on men, it would be difficult to distinguish whether these symptoms were a physiological reaction to the drug or a psychological bi-product. If a man’s mojo suddenly went into overdrive and he were abruptly confronted with all of the people there were around him to have sex with, the possibilities would certainly be dizzying; the constant thinking about sex would cause fatigue and the amount of sex he’d be having (or trying to have) would certainly interfere with his sleep patterns.
But let’s put stereotypical male attitudes toward sex aside for a moment and move onto some of the reaction this new drug is generating in the medical community. Some doctors and patients rights groups accuse drug companies of creating a market for new medications. However, Flibanserin’s manufacturers say that loss of libido is a hugely under-diagnosed condition that can have a devastating effect on relationships.
Some of those in the psychiatry “industry” echo Boehringer’s defense. “Female loss of libido is a big problem and it is not going away. It can cause problems within a relationship and affect self-esteem,” says Paula Hall, Sexual & Relationship Psychotherapist, BASRT Acc, BACP Acc, UKCPReg. God only knows what all of those titles mean, but let’s just consider her a well decorated general in the battle to promote sexual arousal in women. One can certainly question whether she is a paid puppet of the pharmaceutical industry. Yet, there is a deeper question to consider. Are these pharmacological advances a troublesome trend in the way we deal with our sexual problems? It seems that we are increasingly turning to pills to resolve issues that may very well be more social than physiological.
While the previously stated statistic of 25% of woman may be a British figure, the American Medical Association claims that several million women in the U.S suffer from Female Sexual Arousal Disorder or its acronym FASD. Some doctors go even further and say that up to 43% of women in the U.S. suffer from FASD.
Jeez guys, no wonder we have it so difficult; why not prescribe another pill so that we can alter these statistics in our favor? I’ll tell you why not: Pills are not the only solution for our sex problems. While these medical entities are happy to provide us with these disheartening and certainly questionable statistics, they offer little insight into the reasons for this trend. I would think that the medical profession would want to take this into consideration before prescribing yet another pill. Then again, our medical authorities have rarely erred on the side of patient advocacy when lucrative profits stand in the balance.
Another perhaps more important question is whether Flibanserin, or Viagra for that matter, doesn’t open up a proverbial Pandora’s pill box regarding the future of male/female relations.
We have already seen the effect of Viagra on the male. While many men consider it to be one of the most revolutionary and life saving breakthroughs in recent scientific history, women may not see it the same way. Meika Loe writer of the book, The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America, had this to say, “Viagra is marketed to aging men whose female counterparts are going through their own sexual crisis – menopause. These women want less sex but their partners now want more.
“Isn’t this counter-intuitive? Doesn’t this turn the bedroom into a battlefield at a time when women are already vulnerable (e.g., empty nest syndrome, feeling less attractive as we age, physical changes due to menopause including hair loss and weight gain, etc.)”
Ms. Loe’s assessment is probably not very different from that of many women. Viagra gives men an additional advantage among the already existing advantages they have exploited throughout history. Now rather than fading into sexual oblivion with our partners, because of a little blue pill we can now ride out the twilight of our lives with a souped up sexual apparatus.
While some people legitimately suffer from disorders that may require drugs of this nature, there is a huge potential for the abuse of these drugs. While women may not pop Flibanserin like acid tabs at a Grateful Dead concert, their male counterparts certainly do so with Viagra. Yet, when Flibanserin hits the market, we could see battle lines being drawn as cougars and dirty old men vie for ever younger partners.
Could this be the beginning of the sex wars? Will these makers of sexual immortality be driven to an arms (and profit) race to create the ultimate sex pill? Will men and women be pitted against one another comparing the notches on their bedposts or belts? Will men and women still be able to orgasm after they’ve been interred? Will they be able to drag their sexually active souls into the next world to continue their fornicating orgy beyond the grave?
Some of you may be thinking oh hell, stop with your analytical mumbo-jumbo and recognize these innovations as beneficial to both sexes and sex in general. As our life expectancy increases we should make sure that we can continue to enjoy sex well into our 90s. For some of us, the question may be whether sex needs to remain so important in the latter part of our lives. How many of us can say we even had a handle on our sexual selves in the first fifty years of our lives? We are after all supposed to be wiser people when we hit our later years. A lot of this has to do with life experience, but I imagine that once the sexual static clears and we can actually see people for who they are rather than as the composite of their sexual attributes, our dealings with other people become a hell of a lot more saner. The wisdom everyone refers to may very well be the ability to finally think straight without the constant temptation of or desire for sex.
Yet, these are issues that go beyond this discussion. So, let me just leave you with this: I guess, and I am referring to those of us without legitimate psycho-sexual disorders who might abuse these drugs: If we aren’t wise enough to not use them, than we should use these things wisely. Try to mend whatever sexual fences exist in your relationship before Flibanserin hits the market. If all else fails it will make a great gift for birthdays and holidays seasons in 2011.