Viagra for Women

The pharmaceutical industry has long been searching for the female equivalent of Viagra. Researchers decided that what was needed was a reasonably safe and effective drug that acts on the central nervous system, on the pleasure centers of the brain; or the sensory circuitry that serves them.

Enlarge Image

I’ve always been a bit skeptical about all the hype over Viagra. I mean to say, isn’t it a common complaint of women that their significant others usually think with their flagpoles, anyway? Why on earth, then, would they require a booster shot?

The beef men have about women, on the other hand, is that females analyze everything to death; including making love. What is needed – in the men’s opinion – is a pill that temporarily shuts down women’s brains and makes their blood rush to the body parts that really matter. Take heart, guys, nirvana may be close at hand.

I’ve always been fascinated by modern medicine; particularly its propensity to come up with an explanation and a fancy name for any bodily dysfunction you can think of. So the next time your wife pulls that not-tonight-darling-I-have-a-headache routine, don’t be too hard on her. She may actually be suffering from female hypoactive sexual desire disorder (I swear I did not make that up).

Though there may be legitimate sociological or personal underpinnings to that diminished desire — chronic overwork and stress, a hostile workplace, a slovenly or unsupportive spouse — still the age-old search continues for a simple chemical fix.

The pharmaceutical industry has long been searching for the female equivalent of Viagra — a treatment that would do for women’s most common sexual complaint, lack of desire, what Viagra did for men’s, erectile dysfunction.

Researchers decided that what was needed for the treatment of female hypoactive sexual desire disorder was a reasonably safe and effective drug that acts on the central nervous system, on the pleasure centers of the brain; or the sensory circuitry that serves them.

For a while, many sex therapists and doctors were optimistic about Procter & Gamble’s Intrinsa, a testosterone patch that delivers small trans-dermal pulses of the sex hormone thought to play a crucial role in male and female libido alike. But in 2005, the Food and Drug Administration refused to approve Intrinsa, declaring that its medical risks outweighed whatever modest and spotty benefits it might offer.

More recently, another potentially promising treatment for hypoactive desire has been making its way through clinical trials. The compound, called bremelanotide, is a synthetic version of a hormone involved in skin pigmentation, and it was initially developed by Palatin Technologies of New Jersey as a potential tanning agent to help prevent skin cancer. But when male college students participating in early safety tests began reporting that the drug sometimes gave them erections, the company began exploring bremelanotide’s utility as a treatment for sexual disorders.

Studies in rodents demonstrated that the drug not only gave male rats spontaneous erections, but also fomented sexual excitement in female rats, prompting them to wiggle their ears, hop excitedly, rub noses with males and otherwise display unmistakable hallmarks of rodent arousal.

The company has now decided to try out the drug on women. The initial findings show that women in the treatment group also were slightly more likely to have sex with their partners during the course of the trial; than were those in the control group. Larger trials of the drug at some 20 clinical centers around the US are now under way.

Like I said, guys, this could be huge – if it works. Just crush a pill into her wine, or mix it into her Camembert soufflй; and she’ll be good to go whenever you are. Sure beats the crap out of pay-per-view.