On the other side of the FSD divide, allied with the pharmaceutical companies, is a group of physicians who are prescribing off-label treatments for women vexed by their sex lives. (Off-label means the drug hasn't been approved by the FDA for that specific treatment.) The highest-profile of the bunch is Irwin Goldstein, the director of sexual medicine at San Diego's Alvarado Hospital. He and Tiefer have debated the topic of FSD for a decade, but as far as he's concerned, there's really nothing to discuss. He's been using hormones to treat women, and he'll happily put you in touch with patients who will rhapsodize about the results.
Women like Virginia, a 60-year-old native of Britain and an artist who, for privacy reasons, asked that her last name be omitted. She'd spent years asking doctors for medical help to boost her sex drive, which had once been voracious. All of them, she says, "rolled their eyes and harrumphed and tried to change the subject."
"But when I was younger, a really strong libido was just part of who I was," she goes on. "Losing that was like losing a good friend."
Three years ago, she heard Goldstein interviewed on National Public Radio. Within weeks she flew to Boston, the site of his practice at the time, and she soon was taking several hormones. There was tinkering with the combination and the dosage, but a few weeks later she suddenly felt "perky" — more confident about herself as a sexual being and more attractive. She also started having better sex.
"I could get to seventh heaven years ago, and now I can get to fifth," she says. "That's far better than purgatory."
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