Then it's worked then, hasn't it?

I remember hearing about this study on the radio Friday, and I have ot say that my reaction was the same as at Braodsheet -- DUH! I've always had to find alternative methods of birth control other than the pill because I hated the fact that the very thing that I was taking to allow me to HAVE sex was making me not WANT it. It seemed like a fantastic cheat to me.

Thank god I had had a lot of education about birth control, and knew how to protect myself from unwanted pregnancy using methods other than the pill. The problem right now is that we treat the pill like it is some kind of magic bullet, when in fact the real thing that keeps sexually active women from having to make choices no one likes is KNOWLEDGE. Unfortunately sex ed is under attack in the schools, meaning women have fewer resources than ever to protect themselves, which is how those anti-choice, anti-women righties like it.

You go on the pill because you want to be "Doin' it and doin' it and doin' it well". Then you don't want to so much. Life can be so cruel! I could not WAIT to get off the pill!

No surprise, here. We will probably have to face the fact that we can't have everything the way we want it.

(horrors) If hormones affect the sex drive and BC must target/change hormones to work - well, there you have it.

Maybe someday an alternate form of non-hormonal birth control, convenient and dependable, will be discovered....something a lot more palatable than condoms. Until then, we just have to take what we can get.

Biology is very difficult to circumvent, or we wouldn't survive as a species.

On the whole, I would rather have BC and less sex drive than a sex drive and no BC - ah, well.

I think this highlights that one of the true last bastions of sexism is the medical research world.

We have half a dozen prescription erection pills, but nobody has worked real hard to figure out the connection between the pill and a loss of sex drive?

What if it was discovered that one of Viagra's side effects was that, while allowing sex to happen, it also reduced the desire to have sex in the first place. It would have taken researchers about 5 seconds to get the funding to try and solve that problem.

I think all the breast cancer stuff tends to make people think that the medical community really cares about women's issues. Stories like this one, however, should remind us all that breast cancer is about the only woman's issue the research community passionately cares about.

And who are we kidding here, the only reason there is passionate interest in breast cancer is because it is "breast" cancer. If it was "cellulite" cancer that women were dying of, something tells me there would be slightly less interest in the subject.

First off, I am interested in which oral contraceptive was used in the study. Research and my clinical experience have shown that the estrane progestins can have a positive effect on libido, but the gonane progestins can have a negative effect. However, the effect on acne is the opposite, which is a big selling point for lots of birth control pills--literally, as that is how, say Ortho-Tri-Cyclen is advertised. If a decreased libido is a concern for one of my patients, I often suggest an estrane pill, to good effect.

My hint to you is that if you are not familiar with some of the terms in the above paragraph, you should be wary of making sweeping commentary about women's reproductive medicine.

Like everything, hormonal contraception is a work in progress. Imagine if we had disposed of the pill altogether because of side effects from the old, 100-microgram ethinyl estradiol pills. But in the meantime, it is incredibly effective against pregnancy, as well as decreasing menstrual blood loss and discomfort and preventing ovarian and endometrial cancer.

Lastly, if you want a bogeyman, get off the backs of clinicians and focus on insurers, who only allow us 15 minutes with our patients. My patients are largely illiterate and don't speak English, but I only have 15 minutes to tell them (once we've spent time selecting the pill from other methods) how to use the pill, what to do if they make a mistake, the medical risks, and finally, nuisance side effects that may or may not happen to them. What would you cut? and especially if you can't give them any written material in any language?

This new research is interesting, but I suspect another bigger factor is at play here: typically, when a woman goes on birth control pills for the first time, she is also in the process of entering into a new sexual relationship....typically her motivation for the pill over (say) condoms or other barrier methods is that her relationship is ongoing and frequent, rather than incidental and occasional.

Women still feel a lot of guilt over sex, even in the 21st century...that can include even married women, especially if they come from a sub-culture that condemns sex as "evil" or dirty. It can be very difficult to turn 180 degrees and suddenly have to think of sex as clean and beautiful.

Women who are NOT married, and seemingly not burdened by a relgious prohibition against sexual activity, can still have lingering feelings of guilt about what they are doing, how often or with whom. Additionally, I have known a lot of women who went on birth control pills (as opposed to other methods) simply to please and accomodate their male partner (married or not) -- the men did not want the inconvenience of condoms, having to wait for barrier methods, etc. The pill is an absolutely ideal birth control method....FOR MEN.

In response, some women feel resentment for having to use a very expensive method of contraception ($50 a month, and up, if you don't have good health insurance), simply to convenience a selfish partner.

I think the response to all this is often a shut down in desire and a feeling of resentment among women in their child-bearing, birth control-requiring years. Sadly, science has done very little to provide women with more and better choices about controlling their fertility -- there are virtually no other methods now than when I was a young girl in the 70s....

I don't think women are free to completely enjoy sex and their bodies until they are free of the fear of unwanted pregnancy and STDs....