Gone off sex? Never fear, ‘pink Viagra’ is here to save womankind
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Version 0 of 1. Rejoice, rejoice womankind! There is now a magic drug that will make sex desirable. Again. Or for the first time. I can’t name here the already-existing drugs that have such an effect because they are illegal, and who knows what would happen if people took them? (In fact, they have done for decades.) But, never mind, this new magic drug has just been legalised in the US, having been approved by the US Food and Drugs Administration. Flibanserin has just passed an FDA advisory committee stage at the third attempt, so will soon be on the market. It will be sold as Addyi and is produced by Sprout Pharmaceuticals, which has been pushing what has been dubbed “the female Viagra” for some time. The tablets are, of course, pink because women like pink pills and not blue smarties as we are silly like that. ‘Pink Viagra’ has been the holy grail of the drugs industry. Let’s face it, it’s the holy grail of all kinds of cultural imaginings: the magic substance that makes women who mostly can’t be that bothered with sex suddenly crave it. Even with their own partners! No drug can guarantee this, obviously. Years ago, when I worked in a health food shop in Manhattan, I was always shocked by the number of men who asked me to sell them something to: “Make my wife … you know? Like it.” But I still flogged them any old combination of herbs and vitamins because I was working on commission. I was hard of heart and short of money. The drug companies, however, are not short of money and, indeed, there have been some important breakthroughs recently on everything from Ebola to Alzheimer’s. One of the biggest money-spinners, though, remains the “magic bullet”, Viagra, invented by Pfizer at Sandwich before the US giant shut down the site in 2011. Viagra started out as a new treatment for angina, a heart condition that constricts the vessels that supply blood to the heart. By accident, it was discovered that – hey presto! – a side-effect of the drug was to cure erectile dysfunction. One of the unspoken effects of the uptake of Viagra is that men can now have sex with more, and younger, partners. The “shame” of impotency is pummelled away affordably enough. If this is what sex is, and what it is reducible to, then fine. This is marvellous. You can get it up for ever and a day. A rush of blood to the groin is the dream coming true. Viagra thus speaks to two of our greatest needs: penetration and profit. The promise of Addyi is rather like all female desire: mysterious and somehow problematic. Viagra locates the sexual disorder of men in the genitals and their mechanics. The problem for women is located in the brain. Apparently, our brain chemistry must be altered to recharge desire. This new drug, unlike Viagra which can be popped when the need arises or is about to, has to be taken daily. It acts on the brain’s “sexual impulses” in a similar way to a class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which include antidepressants such as Prozac. It has not been approved until now because the risks were said to outweigh the benefits. The side-effects may include low blood pressure and loss of consciousness. And you can’t drink alcohol with it. Arousing, or just awful? Still, plough on, because, even though those who advocate it make its benefits sound as erotic as changing the battery in a remote control, it is worth the risks, they say, because in small trials with placebos, the women on it have an “increase of about one sexually satisfying event a month”. Hold me back! If you are not having “sexually satisfying events”, you may be suffering with what some psychiatrists are calling hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), which, they say, is experienced by 8-14% of women in the US aged between 20 and 49. Once you are over 49, no one cares, frankly. HSDD is a chronic or ongoing lack of interest in sex that may cause a woman distress. It is said to be caused by depression, stress, low self-esteem or previous abuse. It may be caused by diabetes or cancer or arthritis. What this acronym cannot address – because it cannot name it – is boredom, exhaustion, resentment, and dull old relationships: the things that may dampen sexual desire. To say that the brain is the biggest sex organ, which it is, surely involves understanding that sex is about more than the ability to be ever ready for it, that there exists an infinite variety of urges that wax and wane, but actually mostly muddle along. And that most people’s lives do not resemble pornography even when they make more effort than usual. Tellingly, even big companies such as Pfizer, Bayer, and Procter and Gamble have tried to develop drugs to treat the disorder of female sexual desire, but abandoned the search. Even reading Fifty Shades of Grey and having someone unload the dishwasher doesn’t satisfy some women. Can you imagine? The truth is that the drug that liberated women’s desire is the one we all take for granted: the contraceptive pill. |