Viagra does not increase sex drive or arousal, it works strictly on the physical function of achieving and maintaining an erection. I know its a picky thing, but it drives me crazy to hear this disinformation repeated so frequently that its become part of the cultural myth.

So in Britain this preparation will only be available for

"post-menopausal women with diagnosed sexual problems".

This basically means that The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) of the UK has decided that this is a cost effective and effective treatment for certain conditions.

From this the author of the article deduces that soon many women will be getting hold of illegal supplies and sticking them all over themselves. Well, they might, and come to think of it a testosterone patch would also boost the male libido, energy, and aggressiveness.

But the fact is that testosterone has been around for ever, and in fact I even manufacture my own, though it is not available for general release, and many women already obtain their own supplies of this hormone in liquid form by a process that I am too delicate to describe in the august pages of Salon.

Is it better for a woman who has lost her libido for years due to, say, childbirth, to wear the patch and become sexually interested in her husband again; or is it better for her to be 'true to herself', not wear the patch, and greatly increase the liklihood of divorce and infidelity?

Also, I'm looking forward to placebo patches worn by young women to signal availability....

(well, provided that it makes it through the FDA process)...

my guess is, probably, even though birth control will remain off limits in many plans.

ugh.

Some unknown person wrote: "Is it better for a woman who has lost her libido for years due to, say, childbirth, to wear the patch and become sexually interested in her husband again; or is it better for her to be 'true to herself', not wear the patch, and greatly increase the liklihood of divorce and infidelity?"

Uh, if she wants to find her libido again and have sex then how would using this patch make her untrue to herself? My husband is nearly blind without corrective lenses...should he wear glasses and be able to see or should he "stay true to himself" and increase the likelihood of walking into doors and falling down stairs?

You must be tripping. The psychochristians will fight hard against that one. Their vaginas are to pop out Christ's New Army and that's all.

They're not solving an equipment problem here,

they're creating a desire where there isn't one.

So whose interests are served? The woman's maybe,

but not in a vacuum. Isn't it age old that "Sex

sells"? Well, what do we do when it doesn't? Do

we look to hormone "therapy" to get the stragglers

back on board?

To respond to a previous letter-writer:

The glasses analogy is way off-base. That's an

equipment problem. Hence the falling down

stairs, etc. Your husband already wants to see.

The *desire* is the issue here. It's literally

a desire to desire. A par-for-the-course Western

concept!

What's next? Ambition Therapy that induces a

"normal" desire for a Porsche and a McMansion

for the abnormally contented? What a great

solution for you and your appropriately

materialistic spouse!

Here's a suggestion for you unfulfilled husbands

out there. Rather than slap a patch on your wife

when she's not in the mood, unplug yourself from

all your sex-saturated culture-regulation devices

and have a cup of coffee with her on the back

porch, maybe discuss life and death and God

together, and see if your own sex-drive doesn't

subside a little once Victoria's Secret models

aren't writhing across your retinas, and you're

left free to explore more nuanced pleasures, or

even--heaven forbid!--to forego pleasure altogether

and struggle with the mysteries of life together

for a bit.

And, who knows? Maybe the ol' girl's desires might kick up after all once her brain gets a little attention.

Still dragging out the ol' bullcrap about women hating sex, are we??

One thing the political left & right have in common--they both hate heterosexual sex.

heaven forbid!--to forego pleasure altogether

and struggle with the mysteries of life together

for a bit.

And, who knows? Maybe the ol' girl's desires might kick up after all once her brain gets a little attention.

Nah, believe me, that one doesn't work, it is just more female propaganda.

The only way it works is if the guy is hot to begin with, then it really is not needed in the first place.

If I were to take a drug that increased my libido, I'd vastly prefer a pill to be taken on an as-needed basis as opposed to a patch. Who needs to be horny 24/7?

I recently switched from a birth control pill that suppressed my libido to one that gives me the libido of a teenager two weeks out of the month, and those two weeks are rather inconvenient. Sure, it's fun when I'm at home with my husband, but I still have to be in the office 8 hours a day giving my full attention to things other than my clitoris.

Viagra gets to be a pill that's taken as needed, so why can't this thing?

It's not an anti-sex conspiracy. The women in question simply aren't that interested to begin with. That's the "problem".

I'm just daring to suggest that maybe it's really not much of a problem. Certainly not for the woman who goes to her doctor because she *doesn't* really want it. Why would she do that? Probably for her boyfriend or to feel "normal" or because she's been told she *should* want it when really we only need it as much as we need it.

But now we're going to medicalize this, too. Oh boy! A brand new market for doctors and pharmaceutical companies to exploit!

What about the other end of the spectrum? Why don't we look at the omnipresence of sexual imagery in our daily lives and ask ourselves (1)why it's there, (2)how it functions and (3)are we that much happier for it.

(1)It's there to sell us stuff we don't need.

(2)It functions by manipulating a reward center that evolved to promote reproduction. It grabs people's attention and connects your product to something they've evolved to want as if the future of the species depended on their buying your cheeseburger (i.e. Hardees' Paris Hilton ad).

(3)No. In fact, according to a huge chunk of the world's population and the bulk of inherited wisdom the cause of suffering is... DESIRE! Which is exactly what we're cultivating so assiduously here in uber-materialistic America, because desire equals demand which begets surplus value, aka profits.

But maybe we don't lose that much by playing the hand we're dealt in this arena and cultivating other pleasures. Hey,when are we going to get a patch that heightens are natural altruistic tendencies?! Talk about a trip! Wouldn't that change the world!

Oh, and Brightstar, no offense, but why not go find a blind girl or maybe even a really ugly girl? I'm sure there are literally millions of undeniably ugly women out there who would be thrilled to hang with you. If you just can't see yourself with an ugly chick then maybe you should cut the girls who turn you down a little slack. Otherwise, you're a textbook narcissist.