Female Desire Pill, interview with Ellen Barnard
2/27/15 update: I interviewed Ellen Barnard about the female desire pill on 2/2/14. I’m bringing this post to the top because of the attention that “Nothing Is Wrong With Your Sex Drive” (published today in the New York Times) is getting.
I plan to write more about this myself, and there’s a good section already in The Ultimate Guide to Sex After 50: How to Maintain – or Regain! – a Spicy, Satisfying Sex Life which I hope you’ll want to read. — Joan
Desire in a pill?
(originally published 2/2/14)
Researchers are working on drugs to treat low desire in women. Could a desire pill really work? Do we even want it? To learn more, I interviewed one of the top sex educators, Ellen Barnard, co-owner of A Woman’s Touch Sexuality Resource Center.
JP: What’s the state of current research into a female desire drug?
EB: A variety of drugs are being investigated in clinical trials, most in phase 2 trials. No drug has been approved for the treatment of low desire for women, also known as Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD).
JP: How are these drugs supposed to work?
EB: Some of these drugs work on brain chemicals; some are sex hormone-based (testosterone); others primarily work to increase physical arousal through an increase in blood to the clitoris. Most of the medications that are being investigated are designed to either overcome inhibition or lack of motivation, or flood the person with such strong physical sensations that she cannot ignore them easily. Or they manipulate the reward system of the brain in ways that increase the drive toward that sexual jackpot. The question is whether a drug that pushes a woman into being more interested in sex is safe, healthy, or would even be effective over the long term. Many of the drugs being investigated have a variety of side effects, and some are quite undesirable. Testosterone can cause excess hair growth, acne, lowering of the voice, and a decrease in good cholesterol, for example. Other drugs show the potential for abuse, either by the woman herself or by a partner who hopes to have a more willing lover.
JP: Why is sexual desire so complicated for women and seemingly so easy for men?
EB: It isn’t, actually. Men have troubles with desire too, and their issues have many of the same origins as women’s do. However, we live in a culture that reinforces men for a high interest in sex, and generally does not see a high interest in sex to be a positive thing in women, unless a woman is less interested in sex than her partner, and that lower interest causes tension between them or distress in her. But even with culture condoning high desire for men, approximately 20% experience low desire. For more info, here is a good overview.
JP: How does female desire work?
EB: Desire is the cognitive recognition of sexual interest. So it’s an idea, not a physiologic process, though it results in a combination of brain and body responses. Desire may be first recognized as a thought, or it may be a thought in response to a physical feeling. Many women believe that we should feel something first, that sex starts with a twinge in the vulva or elsewhere in the body, that she interprets as sexual interest and then allows to blossom into more sexual interest and then maybe into sexual activity. If physiologic signal is not as obvious because of aging, health, or stress, she may no longer get the signal, and so she does not notice the thought.
Women who have experienced sex as painful have a feedback loop that tells them that sex will hurt, and so they shut off any thought of sex to avoid the pain. If a woman is able to get rid of the pain, she will still have to convince her subconscious that sex is safe. Once she does that, her thoughts of sexual interest often become more frequent.
The same would be true of relationship health. For a woman in a healthy, rewarding relationship, the thought of sex is a safe thought and is likely to mean that she will experience pleasure if she acts on that thought, so she pursues sexual activity. Sex requires the feeling of safety. When there is tension, distrust, fear, anger, etc., the mind does not perceive sex as safe or pleasurable, so will not express desire.
When you think about how complicated desire is for women (and men as well), you can see that it’s pretty complicated to consider a medication to address the root causes of most of these issues.
JP: What’s the bottom line?
EB: The bottom line is that drugs do best when there is a single, knowable cause for a symptom and the drug directly addresses that cause by reducing or removing it. Sexual
desire is complicated, varies a lot from person to person, and has many moving parts. The idea that a drug could be developed to change desire is pretty far-fetched once you understand it that way, and one of our biggest fears is that you end up with a drug that has pretty wide effects and some nasty, unintended side effects.
We would prefer to address desire issues in ways that give individuals more control and more understanding of their mind and body connections so that they can do their own
problem-solving and not be reliant on a pill or a doctor. Most people can increase their experience of desire through a combination of getting healthy, having a good body image, having a safe and trusting intimate relationship, getting enough sleep, lowering stress and distractions, reducing pain, and learning how to have pleasurable sexual experiences on a regular basis.
“How we write about love depends on how old we are”
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| Brian Rea for The New York Times |
“How we write about love depends on how old we are,” observes Daniel Jones in his Modern Love column in The New York Times, Feb. 5, 2015. He explains:
The young overwhelmingly write with a mixture of anxiety and hope. Their stories ask: What is it going to be for me?
Those in midlife are more often driven to their keyboards by feelings of malaise and disillusionment. Their stories ask: Is this really what it is for me?
And older people almost always write from a place of appreciation, regardless of how difficult things may be. Their message: All things considered, I feel pretty lucky.
This last point hit home with me. As a sex educator, I hear people’s problems all the time. But I also hear the good parts — the humor and joy and sweetness of what happens when we love at our age. Those of us who are lucky enough to have found love at this time of our lives are radiant with joy telling our love stories — even if that joy is tempered with the sadness of loss.
I know I feel that way. On this Valentine’s Day, I’m remembering how my dear Robert made Feb. 14 a true celebration of love for seven years with gifts, cards, whispered endearments, languid lovemaking, and lots of laughter.
As sad as I am that I will never hold Robert again on Valentine’s Day or any other day, that feeling has nowhere near the power of the joy I feel that this love was in my life. It feels like a miracle that we ever found each at all, let alone so late in life.
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| Joan and Robert 2001 |
What if he had never wandered into my line dance class that eventful night? We might never have met, never have crossed paths.
What if I hadn’t been assertive (aggressive?) about making the first moves? He was content to see me as his dance teacher (which in itself is bizarre, since he had formal training as a dancer since the age of two, and I had no formal training at all), and he thought that was an uncrossable boundary.
What if I hadn’t dared to proposition him? (You didn’t know that part of our story? Read it in Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty!)
What if we had never realized one of the most important themes of our love story: that the ways we were the most different were the ways we most wanted to grow.
You see, at first, we saw our personality clashes and independence as proof that we were too different to ever come together as a couple — it would be too much work, too many compromises, and besides, we were satisfied with the way we were, thank you very much.
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| Robert and Joan 2006 |
But over the few years we had together, this attitude changed. The closer we got, the more we came to respect our differences — even laugh about them — and the less we felt we needed to resist change. In fact, we discovered that compromise led to change in directions we each wanted to grow.
Once we saw our differences as an opportunity to grow in ways that would be as good for us individually as they were good for us as a couple, we stopped resisting, reframed what we were willing to do for each other, and we blossomed together and apart.
What did you learn about love and about yourself in later life? I hope you’ll share your experiences.
Lelo’s Mona Wave wiggles hello to your G-spot
Are you old enough to remember the ad for the Yellow Pages that started, “Let your fingers do the walking”? Then you’ll understand me if I say, “Let your Mona Wave do the waving.” This delightful and lovely penetrative vibrator does more than vibrate — it gently wiggles forward and back to wave hello to your G-spot.If moving fingers in your vagina are your idea of a fine time, this vibrator from Lelo comes close. The “waving” is supposed to simulate the “come hither” motion recommended to stimulate the G-spot. It sort of does that.
I like a lot about this sex toy:
Pros:
- Beautiful design, well-made, curved for ease of G-spot stimulation.
- 10 patterns with adjustable intensity. You can get the vibrations + the wave, or the wave without vibrations, or the vibrations without wave. The patterns use different rhythms, from tap-tap to roller coaster.
- Smooth, body-safe silicone materials.
- Waterproof and rechargeable.
- Waving motion feels darned good.
That’s not to say it’s perfect, though.
Cons:
- Just try to see the controls without your reading glasses. You can tell by feeling the recessed area how to turn it off and on, but if you want to explore patterns or increase intensity, your lubed fingers will have no idea where to press. You’ll have to turn it off, pull it out, put on your bifocals, and either change the setting or memorize where it is. I know that the lack of raised buttons and easy-to-feel markings make it easier to clean, but the trade-off is that it’s harder to vary settings once you’ve started.
- The vibrations are in the handle as well as in the insertable part. Holding it can irritate an arthritic wrist. Solution, once you have it where you wanted, let go. It will likely stay where it belongs, hands-free or at least hands-minimal.
- If you clench your vagina, the waving transfers from the vibrator to the handle. Neither our vagina nor our hand wants that!
- Lelo is overselling it by claiming that it gives “the orgasm to end all orgasms.” First of all, it doesn’t deliver that. Second, who’d want to “end all orgasms” anyway?
For me personally, the pros far outweigh the cons. I’ll be enjoying this toy often!
Note: The diameter of the widest part is about 1.5″. If you have discomfort with penetration and you prefer a slim toy, it may feel too large. If your vaginal entrance is tight, which is true for many women of our age, the abrupt size change and lack of tapering may be a problem.
You can purchase Mona Wave from Good Vibrations in the US, or for international sales, visit Lelo. Lelo also puts the wave technology into a rabbit vibrator — the Ina Wave — which I haven’t tried yet.
Loving Our Own Aging Bodies
Lauren Marie Fleming’s email to me began,
I’m putting together the final touches for the launch of
my BawdyLove program and I wanted to ask if you’d be interested in sharing
what I’m calling your “Bawdy Love origin story”, or the moment(s)
where you decided you were done hating yourself and ready to work towards
loving yourself fully.
I didn’t ever “hate” my body, but I didn’t see it as beautiful or sexy through most of my teenage and adult years. I looked good in clothes, but naked, my body was far from the media’s image of what a sexy female body should look like. My breasts have never been perky, not even as a teenager. They always flopped, and the older I get, the flatter and floppier they become.
But here’s the strange thing: I love my body now more than I ever have. OK, you can tease me about my eyesight, but honestly, it isn’t about what I look like — it’s what I feel like. and I feel like a beautiful, sensual, sexy woman at age 71. Here’s how I got here:
1. When my great love Robert and I fell in love, he truly found me beautiful and told me so often. He and I had a morning routine, where he brought me coffee in bed, I let the covers slip from my breasts, he covered his eyes and stepped back as if dazzled by my beauty. This didn’t just go one way — I would drink in his body with my eyes and tell him, “You’re the handsomest man in my world.” Take-away point: If you’re lucky enough to have a lover in your life, let each other know how sexy/ beautiful you find each other.
2. I discovered shaper bras that can give me the uplift and cleavage that my breasts don’t have on their own, and that makes me feel confident in sexy, revealing clothing. Take-away point: Shop for underwear and outerwear that show off your body to the best advantage. Put the accent on revealing rather than covering up.
3. I did a lingerie shoot with a photographer at age 65, and I enjoyed it so much that I repeated the experience at age 68. (Hmm, I’m due for another!) I learned so much from the experience of posing in lingerie and seeing the photos afterwards. Take-away point: Pose in lingerie if this intrigues you — you’ll discover that the camera reveals how sexy you are in ways you never saw on your own.
4. I realized that this body, whatever its age, is capable of giving me great sensual and sexual pleasure. What’s sexier than that? I celebrate my body because of the sensations and the pleasure I get from it. I encourage you to do the same. Take-away point: Whether you’re partnered or not, experience, enjoy and love your body’s sexy gifts to you.
I asked followers of my Naked at Our Age Facebook page to comment about their own body image challenges. Here’s what they said:
- I turned 62 yesterday and of course never appreciated my young self’s body. While I try to appreciate my current body, sagging breasts, stretch marks, and loose skin make my newly single sex life a challenge. The lights are out before sex and I don’t dress or undress in front of him. He likes my body but I’m still not comfortable being naked in front of him.
- I’m 55. I have been severely limited in expressing myself freely because I think I should be a smaller size. A friend who was heavier than me once said, “Men don’t care what size you are as long as they can get it in there!” Too funny! I guess she could sense my fear was holding me back from meeting anyone. I have never been able to be that uninhibited about not being my ideal size. Hence, I have been alone a while now. I say I’ll meet someone when I trim down.
- How about also addressing the challenge of explaining scars from injuries and surgeries to a person not yet familiar with what adventures and misadventures you have survived? Along with the ethical quandary of a cancer survivor (with the scars to prove it) dating a person who lost their mate to cancer?
- The most insecure I have been is after surgeries. Explaining your scars and exposing them is nerve wracking. Plus your body has been through a trauma and getting intimate after these events takes time from healing and a patient lover.
- [from a therapist:] I frequently counsel with gorgeous women from 30-65+ who look at their body in the mirror and all they see is the tummy roll from child-bearing or their less than 34D bust. What I see is a woman who is physically, spiritually and emotionally beautiful, but just doesn’t look like the Victoria’s Secret models. You must love yourself before you can love others, and that includes your body.
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| Lauren Marie Fleming |