I’ve spent a lot of time on this website discussing female sexual challenges – low libido, difficulty achieving orgasm, insufficient lubrication, etc. The one topic I've yet to broach is a female equivalent to the male drug Viagra. Women’s sexual satisfaction is no longer a taboo subject in our society (as this website should demonstrate), so we're not afraid to march right up to Dr. So-and-So and say "What's up with this? Why don't I want to have sex as much as a dude?"
The answer to this question has been in the works for quite a while. Leading the investigation is Pfizer, the company responsible for bringing us Viagra in the first place. Experiments are currently being done at the animal level (with rabbits, no joke) to determine the drug's access into human trials.
Viagra works the same for both men and women in that it increases blood flow to the genital area. The only problem with this is that the vast majority of sexual dysfunction in women is not caused by circulation but by psychological factors. So while female Viagra may accelerate the process once it's started, it will not necessarily lead to an increased sexual desire as a whole.
In the words of Sheryl Kingsberg, chief of the division of behavioral medicine at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, “In contrast to men in whom erections have played a huge role in sexual health, for women arousal is not the key problem, desire is.” However, approximately 5 percent of women do suffer from circulation-related sexual disorders, so the drug would have potential to increase satisfaction in that demographic.
Whenever I read about the latest breakthrough in female Viagra, I can’t help but think we're missing the point. Even the scientists who are working on these drugs state emphatically in each and every interview that biology is not the problem – libido is. So instead of taking that a step further and postulating on the reasons why women don’t want to bone, we instead continue to fixate on pharmacological solutions. Where's the logic in that?
It makes me wonder who is perpetuating these studies. Would it be that difficult to explore the social dynamic that leads to sexual aversion in women? I suppose it’s easier to assume that if women don’t want to have sex every day then it must be their own problems and not the result of a larger issue relating to the use of the female body in contemporary culture and media. Oh Western medicine, where have you gone awry?