"I have said that I could live the rest of my life without ever having sex again," mused a lithe, stylish West Los Angeles mother of two who has been with her husband for 17 years. "Then when I have sex and get into it, it surprises me. I think oh, this is great."
The woman said that she doesn't know why her interest in sex has diminished so dramatically. She speculated that it might have to do with her exhaustion at day's end, niggling resentments toward her husband that make her feel less than amorous, the natural effects of aging or a combination of those things.
If there were a magic pill that would revive her lustiness, she said she would take it. "It would be fun, and it would keep my husband happier," she said laughing. "It would be good for my marriage."
Although there's nothing on the market yet that can do for women what a diamond-shaped blue pill has done for men, drug companies such as Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Bayer have been on a competitive quest over the past four years to develop what many are calling "the female Viagra."
Social scientists and mental health clinicians are cautioning that after "the female Viagra" becomes available, women experiencing normal lulls and changes in their sexual life may be persuaded by drug companies' marketing campaigns and doctors that they have a sexual dysfunction.
"The concern is that a [Viagra-type] drug will be marketed to women who don't need it and can't afford it and that the marketing will lead women to feel insecure about their sexuality," said Leonore Tiefer, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and co-editor of "A New View of Women's Sexual Problems," (Haworth, 2001), a newly released collection of writing by clinicians, social scientists and academics on the subject. "We are concerned that the definition of a sexual problem will be expanded to include every woman."
John Bancroft, a psychiatrist and director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University in Bloomington, said that the sexuality of men and women differ markedly. "We can't just transfer concepts that are being used for men in regards to sexuality and sexual dysfunction to women," said Bancroft, author of a cautionary article about the "medicalization" of female sexual problems in next month's issue of the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. "We need to have an open-minded look at what is important for women in their sexual lives."
