Lustful men are little devils,
but women are often tramps

Brian Alexander • E-mail

I wonder what the Grand Inquisitor would think about the testosterone patch.

Testosterone, as you may have heard, is proving to be a valuable weapon in the effort to give women (and men, too, for that matter) better sex lives.

For a few years now, some women have been using testosterone gels and creams obtained from compounding pharmacies in an effort to boost a waning sex drive, often brought on by menopause. And recently, Proctor & Gamble announced data from clinical trials of its Intrinsa patch for women. Seems the patch gave women a bit more octane in the old engine. Should the patch be approved for sale, making it the first drug treatment for female sexual dysfunction on the market, P&G and likely other companies to follow will reap huge economic rewards.

Why the wait?
All well and good, but here’s a question: Why did it take so long? Way back when, like about 30 years ago, doctors noticed that women given testosterone-related steroids for treatment of medical conditions reported a sex drive boost as a side effect. During these intervening three decades, as many as half of all women are estimated to have been suffering from low libido and other sexual problems. Yet only now is anybody trying to do something about it.

A just-released survey of available science from Australia’s Jean Hailes Foundation, which has taken a leading role in this research, says low libido and other symptoms “have been reported to respond well to testosterone replacement,” but that “there is a need for formulations of testosterone therapy specifically designed for use in women, along with clear guidelines regarding optimal therapeutic doses and long-term safety data.” Medicine has had 30 years to find this very data, but there are still just a handful of centers trying to help such women.

“It’s been almost a social taboo,” argues Dr. Crista Johnson, a fellow at UCLA’s Female Sexual Medicine Center. “You didn’t want to talk about these things. Women were not supposed to [have desire].”

No kidding. The Grand Inquisitor, placed in charge of Europe’s spiritual purity by the Catholic Pope during the Inquisition, regarded all women as potentially corrupting, and women who showed any inclination to actually wanting and enjoying sex were regarded as possible succubi, vessels of Satan. If the accusations stuck, they could be killed. Similar punishments awaited (and still do await, sadly) Muslim women who get too friendly with men they aren’t married to. And of course, "The Scarlet Letter" is about American Puritans.

Religion, though, is just a cover. Men are simply scared.

Johnson has researched the practice in some societies, especially African, of female genital cutting, the removal of the clitoris and the sewing together of the outer labia of young women. “Thousands of years ago, patriarchal societies feared women’s sexuality," she says. "They felt it was necessary to curb their desire. Voracity had to be controlled.” This is still true today.

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