Twice the Pleasure

Science says that women like sex. That their libido is often on parallel with men's, and that especially for young and older women, sex is something they highly value. Yet, many women find this assertion itself baffling, as their own body has little want or need for sex.

Men's libido follows a clear path - peaking in adolescence and then slowly diminishing under stress and responsibility and age until retirement where it flares briefly.

Women's libido doesn't - peaking in the midst of familial stress, long after their carefree youth, and then again in retirement.

So, why the gap? Why do many women, especially in their peak years, find that they just don't want sex now that they are actually having it. Or that it just isn't a driving force the way it was back when they were first making out in the backseat of cars.

The answer is simple: It's birth control.

While early studies saw low reporting of lowered libido, more current ones consistently show that lowered libido is one of the most common side effects of hormonal birth control, effecting somewhere between 20-60% of users. The thing is, no one knows quite how many women do have lowered libido, because of the consistency and prevalence of their use.

I was in middle school when the first of my friends went on hormonal birth control. She'd been prescribed it to help control her acne, and it helped. By the time I neared the end of high school, I was one of the few that wasn't on the pill. As my friends started getting married, even more switched. Most women who use hormonal birth control remain on the pill for decades, stopping only when they want to conceive, or if other medical reasons force them to switch.

As an adult, I can count on one hand the number of women I know who aren't on hormonal birth control.

One of my recently pregnant friends commented on their increased libido while trying for a baby, and during pregnancy. They'd been told that their libido might increase during pregnancy, but they'd been surprised that it increased before too. They wrote it off as "baby fever."

Another friend went through a surprising "slutty phase" when they'd discontinued their birth control because of complications with depression medications. They, their doctors, and their psychiatrist wrote it off as a strange manic aspect of their otherwise very normal depression, and it ended shortly after they stopped their anti depressants.

Yet another discovered that while she'd believed herself to be asexual her whole life, all her teen hormones came raging back when she wasn't on the pill.

Statistically, they aren't alone. But when you have been on birth control since you were 15, how are you supposed to know what a "lowered libido" even is?

The thing is, there hasn't been an alternative. If they weren't ready for a child, their options were abstinence, or the all too often failing alternatives like condoms that take much of the control out of their own hands. In order to have sex, many women lost their desire to have sex.

Until now.

Men's birth control took a long time to develop, but with increasing male responsibility, the ease of DNA tests, and a changing culture, demand has finally pushed science to an answer.

There had been some failed attempts, hormones that had similar emotional and biological impacts to the pill, and hope sort of dwindled.

This year, India will be offering the first non-hormonal, fast reversible birth control for men.

It sounds scary to men, unfamiliar with the invasive nature of women's birth control, but it is as simple as birth control gets: A one time shot that simply prevents sperm from making it out. Similar to vasectomy, but less invasive, the procedure is predicted to have safety rates similar to IUDs, and last for 13 years.

This is the chance of a lifetime - for both women and men. It means that women finally have an option to be free from hormonal birth control, and for a lot of women that means that for the first time in a very long time, their libido is going to shoot through the roof.

So go forth! Take advantage of all that science is offering and get busy.