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No Viagra for Women
by Lisa Chavez
Well, it’s been scientifically proven. Men and women truly do go from arousal to desire in two different ways. Even though in laboratory tests, it was always easy to use the same biometrics to measure arousal in men and women. Body temperature rises, blood flows to the penis or vulva -- same process. Measure these biometrics before and during orgasm, and you’re even more sure that the same process is going on.
Not so, says the latest news. Men, it seems, have the simpler mechanism. Press lever, get juice. It’s the big boing theory. Feed the boner by sending blood to the penis, and he goes directly to let-me-at-her mode. And that’s the theory on which Viagra has made its billions. There’s an enzyme lurking around in the penis that can make it hard for blood to flow, and Viagra takes out that enzyme: let it flow, let it flow. Since women have the same enzyme in their pelvic regions, it was just a simple step of logic -- when Pfizer invested a fortune, 8 years of research, countless trials, and a team of top scientists -- to expect to find a pill that would work much like Viagra for women.
And it did work at first. The blood did rush to women’s genitals in promising readings similar to those for men. The problem was that, for the large part, these women weren’t any more interested in having sex, even though their test readings had all the bells and whistles of arousal.
At first, researchers thought, well, maybe we can figure out a profile for the women who do have this simple connection between physical arousal and sexual desire. Then at least we can make and market a pill for them. But that, too, turned out to be a dead end. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to who and how arousal came about.
So last week, three thousand test women later, the Pfizer sex research team threw in its chips. The team’s leader, Mitra Boolel, came to the conclusion that "there’s a disconnect in many women between genital changes and mental changes." He added, "this disconnect does not exist in men. Men consistently get erections in the presence of naked women and want to have sex. With women, things depend on a myriad of factors."
What does this setback mean for the hope of the female Viagra pill? Well, Pfizer isn’t giving up, but they do intend to look in completely different areas of study. They may have to offload a few of their urologists and cardiologists and re-tool their efforts with psychiatrists, according to professor of psychiatry Dr. George Nurnberg (University of New Mexico School of Medicine). And it’s true that Boolel is thinking of looking into brain chemistry as the possible next wave of research.
Boolel’s new direction might suggest that it won’t be long before women go to their gynecologists for happy pills. However, U.C.L.A. Urologist Jennifer Berman, who worked on some of the clinical trials for this study, thinks the solution will come from studying the hormones and Nurnberg tends to agree.
Author of Eve’s Rib, Marianne Legato, is a pioneer in gender-specific medicine who feels that a great number of health issues are actually different for men and women. Legato says that women often don’t experience sexual desire until they’re actually making love, which means a guy has to do a psychological balancing act to get anywhere -- uh, you already knew this? "What we need to do is find a pill for engendering the perception of intimacy," she told the New York Times. Some don’t like the idea of a woman’s little pink pill saying that there is no "normal" amount of sexual desire to aspire to. Others who hear the news suggest it’s time to go back to poetry, candles, aromas, and back rubs. Or maybe with the right sexy voice, a sparkling pendant on a swinging chain might do it.
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