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[Devolution]

I am very, very skeptical of this studies theory. But, hey, I am all for a libido drug for women. Orgies, orgies everywhere!!!

Ey you got the L and the V? Time to party!

 

[Kazerei]

Casual sex Friday is my favorite workplace tradition

 

[offtopic]

It's also pretty clear that a lot of people desire it enough to work for it. The easy option would be just to have anarchical sex and orgies each Friday but the benefits of being in a relationship with one partner seem to hold mass appeal.

I don't think it so much holds mass appeal as it is critical to maintaining social order. We restrain ourselves and "punish" violators because we must fit into society.

 

[Sarcastico]

At its core is it really all that different if the person is jacking off to someone who isn't you? You aren't involved in the process.

I don't care about fapping to the sex going on but if you're fapping to the fantasy of being with someone else, well.

Well, neither is the other person, which is a huge factor, in my opinion.

 

[Hunter S.]

Ey you got the L and the V? Time to party!

Sure thing doll. I will PM you! ;-)

 

[Village]

I don't think it so much holds mass appeal as it is critical to maintaining social order. We restrain ourselves and "punish" violators because we must fit into society.

Some do some dont.

We aren't the same.


There are a lot of people into that kind of thing, more than you would think.

 

[vikki]

To be perfectly honest what I've gotten from this and other studies is that open communication is the way to go as well as deconstructing elements that keep people holed up in guilt, shame and gendered prisons of thought.

I like this. You can't just say "open relationships" because you may not be comfortable with an open relationship. You could suggest it though.

 

[offtopic]

Some do some dont.

We aren't the same.

Yes, I'm generalizing a bit but most modern societies actively promote monogamy although it is against our nature.

 

[jaxword]

I'm hardwired to uppercut meter maids.

 

[Village]

Yes, I'm generalizing a bit but most modern societies actively promote monogamy although it is against our nature.

I do not think that is...well...


Do you know all the depraved shit that is supposedly Nature? That now we think is unacceptable. Something being in our nature isnt really a valid argument anymore.


I understand what you are saying. But yeah...

Would it be beneficial for some people, yeah.

 

[freddy]

I don't think it so much holds mass appeal as it is critical to maintaining social order. We restrain ourselves and "punish" violators because we must fit into society.

To me it's more like I just love my wife and although that young chick with the freckles making those eyes at me looks ok and probably has a nice backside, I just couldn't bear the thought of going behind my girls back when I'm the one that is supposed to have it, against all odds and any comers. That's just me though and if I took studies to heart like this I'd believe I'm fairly unique in thinking like this, but somehow I just don't believe I am.

 

[Izayoi]

Mostly the idea that people get off without their partner and "someone else" pretty consistently.

I mean, I love my porn and all, but I would argue that it's not quite that cut and dry.

Porn and sex are not one and the same.

 

[perfectchaos007]

I mean, I love my porn and all, but I would argue that it's not quite that cut and dry.

Porn and sex are not one and the same.

From what I hear, porn is way more satisfying. Actually having sex is usually a let down of expectations. Is this true?

 

[Kiarushka]

With each new article I read about my gender, the more distant I get about my gender.

I guess I'm so naturally traditional I'm against what nature intended.

 

[Rayis]

Honestly, I'm mostly ok with a partner having sex with others as long as he doesn't infect me with STD's and his love is reserved for me

 

[Wiktor]

Everytime I go on facebook, I see way more women breaking up with their friend, and way more men basically begging for the relationship than women. Thats my anecdotal evidence.

Give it some time. Once women pass 40 they became the desperate group.

 

[Future]

It bothers because yea, it would make me jealous. I'm happy for you if you're okay with it. It's quite clearly there in my OP. I don't know why is it such a big deal to you if I am not comfortable with notion of "open relationship" in my life. So please, kindly continue to judge me with your brain frantically trying to find the next set sentences best fit to berate me.

How was anything I was saying making you think I was going to berate you, or that anything is a big deal? You made a post, I asked some questions. Just asked why this was an issue for you. It's an issue for most in general so there is nothing to berate.

For me, I feel it's possible to love and take care of someone while getting sexually satisfied elsewhere. If she keeps comin home to me it wouldn't really bother me, but I'm pretty unique like that.

 

[Alucrid]

so she was telling the truth when she said, 'it's not you it's me.'

 

[not psycho]

This is why guys with multiple personality disorder are so highly sought after.

If you have the misfortune of only having one personality, try to replicate the experience. Grow a heavy beard sometimes, then shave it off. Drastically change your hair style. Get piercings for a while, then stop using them. Cultivate bizarre mannerisms and then just as suddenly forget them. This is just the base level though. Ideally, you will also be changing your hobbies and emotions. One day you are an emotionally needy businessman, the next you are an emotionally distant guitarist.

 

[Keri]

It is anyone else disturbed that they're creating a drug to combat this? Why can't we leave anything alone anymore.

Yeah, a little. But, I guess women won't have to worry about losing sexual interest in their husbands now that we can be drugged into feeling attracted to them!

Yay...?

 

[Wiktor]

This is why guys with multiple personality disorder are so highly sought after.

If you have the misfortune of only having one personality, try to replicate the experience. Grow a heavy beard sometimes, then shave it off. Drastically change your hair style. Get piercings for a while, then stop using them. Cultivate bizarre mannerisms and then just as suddenly forget them. This is just the base level though. Ideally, you will also be changing your hobbies and emotions. One day you are an emotionally needy businessman, the next you are an emotionally distant guitarist.

Seems like way to much work just to keep a single woman.

 

[Devolution]

Yeah, a little. But, I guess women won't have to worry about losing sexual interest in their husbands now that we can be drugged into feeling attracted to them!

Yay...?

I think you two need to chill a bit. If someone loves their partner and wants a boost, what's wrong with getting this medication?

 

[not psycho]

Yeah, a little. But, I guess women won't have to worry about losing sexual interest in their husbands now that we can be drugged into feeling attracted to them!

Yay...?

Drugs for increasing libido won't necessarily make you interested in your husband. It could instead make you super interested in cheating on them with someone you do find attractive.

Libido can go down for both men and women for chemical reasons. Drugs can counter that, but they probably won't make you think your husband is hot.

Also, keep this in mind:

"For a sizable segment of the undesiring, the most common antidepressants, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, can be the culprit."

Drugs themselves are the reason for the libido decreasing for many women.

 

[Keri]

I think you two need to chill a bit. If someone loves their partner and wants a boost, what's wrong with getting this medication?

I'm not seriously concerned, but I do think it sounds sad. If women want to take the drug, there's nothing wrong with making that choice, but there is something depressing about resigning yourself to manufacturing attraction, rather than seeking out and enjoying genuine attraction.

But I suppose, if the drug is good enough, it will feel the same in the end?

Drugs for increasing libido won't necessarily make you interested in your husband. It could instead make you super interested in cheating on them with someone you do find attractive.

From the sound of the article, the problem is specific to women having less interest in their husband/partner. Based on the article, it seems that the intent of the drug is to restore an attraction to a particular person, that no longer exists.

 

[Rhindle]

Esther Perel, a couples therapist and author of “Mating in Captivity,” emphasizes a separateness at the heart of longstanding passion. “Many couples confuse love with merging,” she writes. “This mix-up is a bad omen for sex. To sustain élan toward the other, there must be a synapse to cross. Eroticism requires distance.”

“What protects desire in monogamous partnerships is a great empirical question,” Brotto said. “I don’t think there have been any good studies.”

This bit is interesting. It seems intuitive that a certain degree of "separateness" would help sustain desire in a couple over the long haul.

Seems to me that some research into this would be productive, perhaps more so than just throwing a pill at the problem. It ought to be fairly straightforward to study what practices correlate with sustaining sexual desire: Separate bedrooms perhaps? Solo vacations? More frequent "date nights"?

 

[Devolution]

I'm not seriously concerned, but I do think it sounds sad. If women want to take the drug, there's nothing wrong with making that choice, but there is something depressing about resigning yourself to manufacturing attraction, rather than seeking out and enjoying genuine attraction.

But I suppose, if the drug is good enough, it will feel the same in the end?

You're acting like libido and attraction are the same exact thing when they are not.

 

[Violet_0]

just confirms my long-held belief that everyone cheats if given the chance

 

[DrBo42]

i hope open relationships become more common and respectable in society's eyes.

No thanks. STDs are already rampant enough.

 

[WanderingWind]

Like, I mean, it's not magic love fairies dropping off love and snuggle feels into your heart when you sleep that causes a rise in libido. It's a chemical reaction in your noggin. Medication can help when that shit goes out of whack. It's not rocket science.

It's like, biology science and shit.

 

[not psycho]

From the sound of the article, the problem is specific to women having less interest in their husband/partner. Based on the article, it seems that the intent of the drug is to restore an attraction to a particular person, that no longer exists.

I didn't see that in the article.

Libido can be decreased for tons of women by anti-depressants. Another drug could possibly increase libido.

None of the drugs I have heard of will make you attracted to a particular person. That would be a love potion or an unscrupulous genie.

 

[Devolution]

I didn't see that in the article.

Libido can be decreased for tons of women by anti-depressants. Another drug could possibly increase libido.

None of the drugs I have heard of will make you attracted to a particular person. That would be a love potion or an unscrupulous genie.

Birth control can also lower libido in many circumstances.

 

[ClassyPenguin]

Birth control can also lower libido in many circumstances.

And so can diabetes and lots of other illnesses and medication that effect hormonal regulation.

I see nothing wrong with having a viagra like drug women and by speculation, I think the detractors have more to do with gender roles and such.

 

[Prologue]

just confirms my long-held belief that everyone cheats if given the chance

Really?

 

[WanderingWind]

So can child birth. So can menopause. So can a billion things. Men have viagra. Women have whatever the fuck this thing is called.

Get it, ladies.

 

[ClassyPenguin]

So can child birth. So can menopause. So can a billion things. Men have viagra. Women have whatever the fuck this thing is called.

Get it, ladies.

It hasn't been invented yet.

 

[GaimeGuy]

couldn't it also be backwards?

That just like the man wanting to spread his seed to multiple women, women also want to bear the children of multiple men, since it increases the biodiversity of their offspring, leading to a greater chance of survival?

Basically, diversification to mitigate risk.


Just from a sexual selection standpoint.

 

[Violet_0]

Really?

really. Most of us are just not cut out for monogamy

 

[Keri]

You're acting like libido and attraction are the same exact thing when they are not.

It seems to me that its the articles you quoted that are acting like libido and attraction are the same thing. Or am I reading them wrong? When they say that women lose sexual interest in their husbands, they mean that women are still sexually attracted to their husbands, they just have a decreased physical desire for sex?

I mean, keep in mind the articles say this:

Add to that the study Bergner cites showing women respond to novelty in pornographic fantasies, and another showing that women are much more turned on by fantasies of sex with strangers than friends...Instead, as Bergner writes, a ton of money is being spent on developing a drug women can take to restore their desire for their husbands.

I took this to mean that women are attracted to sexual novelty and, consequently, become less attracted to their long-term partners, over time. I also took the pairing of this statement with the reference to pills, as a suggestion that women who are less attracted to their husbands use medication to "restore" the attraction. It's this suggestion that I personally find sad, but to each their own.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

i hope open relationships become more common and respectable in society's eyes.

fuck. that.

 

[Rhindle]

And so can diabetes and lots of other illnesses and medication that effect hormonal regulation.

I see nothing wrong with having a viagra like drug women and by speculation, I think the detractors have more to do with gender roles and such.

So can child birth. So can menopause. So can a billion things. Men have viagra. Women have whatever the fuck this thing is called.

Get it, ladies.

Yes, but that's not what these studies are about. The premise of the articles is that being in a long-term relationship - in and of itself - leads to loss of desire for their partner in a significant percentage of women. There may be some biological factors at play in some cases, but the studies imply that those would only be contributing factors.

How else would you explain this:

Dietrich Klusmann, a psychologist at the University of Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, has provided a glimpse into the bedrooms of longtime couples. His surveys, involving a total of almost 2,500 subjects, comprise one of the few systematic comparisons of female and male desire at progressive stages of committed relationships. He shows women and men in new relationships reporting, on average, more or less equal lust for each other. But for women who’ve been with their partners between one and four years, a dive begins — and continues, leaving male desire far higher. (Within this plunge, there is a notable pattern: over time, women who don’t live with their partners retain their desire much more than women who do.)

 

[Hawkian]

He sounded pretty serious to me too. I mean, look at his avatar. Does he look like a troll to you?

waiiiiitaammiiinnute

 

[FartOfWar]

Well the conventional wisdom was that women were just nonsexual creatures especially after becoming mothers.

It was? When?

 

[Devolution]

Yes, but that's not what these studies are about. The premise of the articles is that being in a long-term relationship - in and of itself - leads to loss of desire for their partner in a significant percentage of women. There may be some biological factors at play in some cases, but the studies imply that those would only be contributing factors.

How else would you explain this:

It could all be biological, that's kind of the point. Wanting to remain sexually active with someone is a desire some of them have but their libido takes a nose dive. You can be attracted to people and have a low sex drive. The problem might be time invested while a new lover makes sex drive spike back up. The thing is what if those women don't want a new lover. Get it?

 

[WanderingWind]

Yes, but that's not what these studies are about. The premise of the articles is that being in a long-term relationship - in and of itself - leads to loss of desire for their partner in a significant percentage of women. There may be some biological factors at play in some cases, but the studies imply that those would only be contributing factors.

How else would you explain this:

What am I supposed to be explaining? Men have a pill that fights a biological issue that interferes with their conscious desire to want to bone. Now women will soon have an equivalent. This is an issue...why?

 

[Rhindle]

What am I supposed to be explaining? Men have a pill that fights a biological issue that interferes with their conscious desire to want to bone. Now women will soon have an equivalent. This is an issue...why?

It could all be biological, that's kind of the point. Wanting to remain sexually active with someone is a desire some of them have but their libido takes a nose dive. You can be attracted to people and have a low sex drive. The problem might be time invested while a new lover makes sex drive spike back up. The thing is what if those women don't want a new lover. Get it?

I'm not taking issue with drug therapy at all ... if this pill works out and solves the problem for some women/couples, that's great.

I was taking issue with the idea that anti-depressents, birth control, childbirth etc. are the root causes of the problem - which these studies clearly indicate is not the case.

 

[cyclonekruse]

Since its beginnings, when it was called "sociobiology," evolutionary psychology has been wed to the theory that women are monogamous and men are promiscuous

For what it's worth, that's not what I was told in the Evolutionary Psych class I took a few years back. Women were said to be promiscuous but in a different way. They would lock down a mate to help raise their kids, yes, but then they would cheat on that guy with a more muscular, testosterone-filled guy and actually get impregnated by him. Basically, marry the nerd and get knocked up by the jock on the side. That way your kid has good genes but also a steady source of resources. At least that was the idea. The evidence given for this hypothesis was the finding that women tend to find more masculine men attractive during ovulation:

An exercise that required the women to rate how close they felt to their men yielded dramatic results. As women mated to less sexually attractive men moved from their least fertile to most fertile period, their closeness scores dropped one point on a seven-point scale. Women mated to the most sexually attractive men, meanwhile, experienced the opposite effect. As these women moved from their least to most fertile period, their closeness scores rose by a point.

Another way to read that is that moving from periods of high fertility to low fertility made the less sexually attractive men (i.e. men with less testosterone, typically) more appealing while it made the more sexually attractive men less appealing.

Also, I was told in the class that relationships tend to fail about 4 years into it (there's a spike in breakups after the 4 year mark)...unless the couple has a baby, which resets the counter. Which would kind of jive with this article. If your evolutionary goal is to have a couple of kids, then why is it necessary to be interested in sex after you've already met your goal? Especially since the physical investment in pregnancy is so high for women. It would stand to reason that since pregnancy held such danger to a woman's life back in the day, not getting pregnant any more after you've had a couple of kids becomes beneficial.

 

[WanderingWind]

I'm not taking issue with drug therapy at all ... if this pill works out and solves the problem for some women/couples, that's great.

I was taking issue with anti-depressents, birth control, childbirth etc. being the root causes of the problem - which these studies clearly indicate is not the case.

I don't think you can separate those issues, man. Things like birth control pills and childbirth are uniquely female and part of the entire sexual experience for sexually active women - more on the first than the latter. So, I don't think there is any way for the study to make judgements on what is or isn't the root of the causes of the decreased libido in the polled women. If anything, the fact that men weren't affected lends a bit to the side that these uniquely female issues had some bearing on the decreased libido.

 

[not psycho]

I was taking issue with the idea that anti-depressents, birth control, childbirth etc. are the root causes of the problem - which these studies clearly indicate is not the case.

Nobody was saying that.

Anti-depressants, birth control, etc, can decrease libido. These drugs, if they work, could increase libido. I'm drawing a comparison between the two, not saying one is the root cause for the other to solve.

You wouldn't say anti-depressants are an "anti-love potion" for a specific person, any more than you should say the new drug is a love potion for one person.

It could be that the "increase libido" drug would be most useful for monogamous relationships (because new relationships already come with a libido spike on their own). But that is still not the same as a love potion.

The potential problem I could see is if it turns out to be more of a social problem, such as men not being creative enough, or women being inundated with images of female sexuality that alienate them from traditional monogamous sex. Then the drugs could arguably lead to less chance of solving those social problems.

 

[Deified Data]

Evolutionary psychology is pseudo-science. Mass-guessing on top of untestable assumptions. What little relevancy it holds is dwarfed by personal experience and environment.

But yeah, women want to cheat as much as men do, generally speaking. A lot of insecure men in this thread assuming that all monogamous relationships are on a timer that'll somehow result in their partner wanting new dick at the end. That's obviously not always the case. Healthy communication will solve 99% of the issues leading up to such a result.

 

[ClassyPenguin]

I'm not taking issue with drug therapy at all ... if this pill works out and solves the problem for some women/couples, that's great.

I was taking issue with the idea that anti-depressents, birth control, childbirth etc. are the root causes of the problem - which these studies clearly indicate is not the case.

You must have missed

"For a sizable segment of the undesiring, the most common antidepressants, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, can be the culprit. Millions of American women are on S.S.R.I.'s, and many of them would have good use for a pill to revive the libido that has been chemically dulled as a side effect of the pill they take to buoy their mood."

I don;t agree with the tone. It makes it seem like SSRI's are zombiefying drugs, which they are not.