Sexual desire in men is fairly straightforward. Women are more complicated. A lot of pharmaceutical effort has gone into making sure that men can remain sexually active for as long as they like. (Think Viagra). But there is nothing on the market for women who want to increase their sexuality. Not that pharma isn’t trying, but women — are more complicated.

This week a new study measuring the amount low sexual desire in 2,000 women between the ages of 30 and 70 was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. What’s interesting about this study is not how many women report that they have low sexual desire — 36.2 percent. What’s new is that the researchers measured how distressed women were by their disinterest in sex. That combination of low sexual desire and distress is called hypoactive sexual desire disorder. In other words, low sexual desire is not a problem unless it bothers you.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Procter & Gamble. P&G is in the process of developing a testosterone patch for women that would increase their libido, or sexual desire. Just as in men, testosterone is the hormone that drives sexual desire in women, and it fades with menopause.

“We know libido diminishes with age and within relationships,” said Dr. June LaValleur, an expert on women’s sexuality at the University of Minnesota. She’s also doing research on P&G’s testosterone patch, but was not involved in this study. (Sexual desire also fades in men, she said, “but nobody talks about that.”)

Dr. June LaValleur

Using a proprietary questionaire developed by P&G, the researchers measured how women of different ages were emotionally affected by their disinterest in sex.

Not surprisingly, younger women were more likely to be distressed than older women. Slightly less than third of those aged 30 to 39 said they had low sexual desire, and 8.3 percent reported being distressed by it. Among those aged 60 to 70 years, 60 percent said they had low sexual desire and 6 percent said it was a problem.

“The older women were not as concerned and did not have as much angst as younger women because it’s expected,” LaValleur said.

However, rates of distress were much higher — 20 percent — among the women under age 45 who had had their reproductive organs surgically removed. They lost the organs that supply the hormones that drive desire (testosterone) and arousal (estrogen).

LaValleur pointed out that the emotional responses to sexual issues can confuse things. Women often mistake low libido with what she calls “sexual desire discrepancy.” A woman may be happy with sex once a week, but her partner would like it more often. That’s not low sexual desire, she said. “Two people have to agree on this,” she said.

The study — funded by P&G — was conducted in part to measure the emotional reaction that women have to low sexual desire. The testosterone patch, if approved, would be the woman’s equivalent to Viagra, a treatment that allows women to enjoy an active sex life after nature, or surgery, has turned off their hormones.

It raises some interesting questions. Is P&G in the process of creating a medical need where there isn’t one? You can imagine the advertising campaign that would go along with the testosterone patch. Or is it identifying a need that exists, and demonstrating that some women — especially those who’ve had hysterectomies — would benefit from such a fix?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 12:25 pm and is filed under menopause, sexual health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.