Viagra: How Has It Affected Women?
It's difficult to see how the often middle-aged
female partners of the men taking Viagra could be happy
Many of them are battling with the mood swings
and low libido induced by menopause,
just as their husbands are experiencing sexual rejuvenation
It's changed the lives of millions of men
- but at what cost to women?
Ten years since its launch, there seems no end to Viagra's success. The male sex drug has become one of the world's best known brand names and has restored sexual function to an estimated 27million men worldwide.
The number of users continues to increase by the week, in the process making Pfizer, its manufacturer, untold millions.
So far, however, there is no equivalent wonder pill for women, and whether Viagra use has caused equal delight among the often middle-aged female partners of the men taking it is another matter.
Indeed, many of them are battling with the mood swings and low libido induced by menopause, just as their husbands are experiencing sexual rejuvenation.
Not only that, Viagra use has been linked to a dramatic upturn in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases among older people, as husbands use Viagra to fuel sexual adventures elsewhere.
Over the past ten years, rates of infections such as gonorrhoea have increased by 227 per cent in men aged 45-64, more than four times faster than the increase in the rate among teenagers.
There are similar dramatic increases in other sexual infections in the same male age group, with chlamydia increasing by 315 per cent between 1997 and 2006.
Viagra has been almost as influential as the Pill in changing attitudes and behaviour. But as John Dean, the new president of the International Society for Sexual Medicine, acknowledges the drug has been a mixed blessing - not least because of the ignorance of male doctors about its effect on women.
"Before Viagra arrived, most doctors had zero training in dealing with these problems," he says. "Even now, although urologists regard male sexual function as part of their speciality, there is not the equivalent interest in female sexual health among gynaecologists."
That might eventually change, with news announced this week that scientists are developing a "wonder pill" to generate sex drive in both men and women. But the fact remains: Viagra works to boost only men's physical capability.
Doctors agree that a healthy sex life is important to the well-being of most people, and anything they can do to assist that is valuable.
The problem, it seems, is that women have been left out of the equation - as Miranda Hopkins unhappily discovered.
After the difficult birth of her second child, Miranda, like many women, experienced a loss of libido.
"I must have been in labour for 20 hours," recalls the mother-of-two from Amersham, Buckinghamshire. "The birth did a lot of damage to me physically and I just didn't want my husband near me afterwards. I don't know if I had post-natal depression as well, but things were not good."
Dismayed by his wife's constant rejection, Miranda's husband of 14 years, a 39-year-old professional, began to have problems of his own.
"The fact that I was constantly pushing him away really got to him. He went to the G, and, after various other suggestions, he came back with a supply of Viagra which, if anything, made the problems between us even worse.
"It doesn't work to have a man wanting sex all the time if his partner is not interested," says Miranda. Fortunately, the couple were able to resolve their problems.
But Miranda adds: "I don't think Viagra is necessarily the answer. It is a drug which can seriously destabilise the balance in a relationship, and make women feel very insecure about what they should or should not be doing."
The greater problem is that in many cases, just as the older man's sex drive is being rejuvenated by Viagra, his wife is experiencing the menopause, with its negative effect on libido.
The menopause causes a woman's ovaries to slow down and stop producing hormones, including testosterone (the sexdrive hormone) and oestrogen, which can cause body tissues to become thin, making sex painful.
Studies of the social effects of treating sexual dysfunction in older couples have revealed a regular complaint that male doctors are often only too happy to treat male patients on their own, without making any inquiries about the state of a man's relationship with his wife or partner.
Gwen, a 61 year-old teacher from London, lays the blame for the breakdown of her 35-year marriage at the door of Viagra.
Her problems began when her husband, a business administrator, underwent a prostate operation which left him impotent.
"He saw several doctors and none of them suggested discussing his medical treatment with his wife," she said.
"With Viagra he felt his virility had returned, but we had to make a decision about when to have sex because you have to take the drug an hour or two beforehand. I felt under pressure to co-operate even when I didn't feel like it.
"It was like a form of harassment, and I felt it wasn't me he was having sex with. I was being used to fuel a fantasy I wasn't part of."
The couple separated and are now divorced.
In the past, male impotence was accepted as a natural part of ageing. Although many men suffer impotence as a result of heart disease, diabetes or obesity, many more find their functions simply decline with the passing decades.
However, "male sexual dysfunction" has now been labelled as a medical condition to be treated, creating a worldwide industry in Viagra and related drugs.
Female sexual dysfunction has received similar scrutiny as the drugs industry relentlessly searches for new conditions open to a medical label. But so far, efforts to treat women have not been successful.
"Our work on female sexual dysfunction is early-stage research with no guarantee of success," said a spokesman for Pfizer. !None of the compounds in development is sufficiently advanced to comment on at this stage."
In defence of Viagra, he maintained that the product is not an aphrodisiac and has never been promoted as one.
"The drug's primary function is to treat the particular condition of erectile dysfunction - it does not create sexual stimulation in itself," he said.
But the end result is that men are being helped by Viagra, but women aren't. And this is counterproductive, says Nick Hale.
He is a salesman who has devoted much of his career to the marketing of products for impotence, and has more experience than most in this area.
Both Nick and his partner, who have two children, have become candidates for treatment themselves. Nick, now 50, became impotent as a result of high blood pressure in his early 40s, and his partner suffered premature menopause in her late 30s.
"Fixing a man's sexual function while doing nothing for the woman is not helpful. We know that half of the men who get Viagra from their doctors never go back for a repeat prescription - not because it doesn't work, but because their partners don't like it."
So while we know that a healthy sex life is important for both genders, interest in helping women is lagging way behind the interest in helping men.
"Although doctors are now taking more care to ensure partners are also present when men are treated for impotence, there is, so far, no equivalent interest in female sexual health," said John Dean.
"That might all change when there is more hope of offering women effective treatment, but it is not happening yet."