As a reader pointed out early on in this thread, Viagra isn't medically analogous to LibiGel. In fact, it would be difficult to develop a drug for women that was actually medically equivalent to Viagra, given men's and women's very different sexual systems. I intended to make a cultural, rather than medical, comparison between the drugs -- but I can see that wasn't clear.

In both cases we have women making grand sweeping generalizations and placing great judgments on things they have no experience with. And having made those judgments they use tactics of shaming and gossip to enforce their judgments on others.

This is progress?

Tracy, here's a scene from the Music Man explaining my thesis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbhnRuJBHLs

Perhaps I should have noted right off the bat that I'm nearly 54 years old. So of course I've gone through all the hormonal changes as well, straight through to what I'm assuming is menopause. When I was about 50, the changes sexually began to be more pronounced, and at the time it worried me. Now? No. But that's part of my point. We all go through changes and fluctuations in our lives for a million different reasons, including reasons that may not even be physical but which affect us sexually. Life affects us sexually. To insist that it shouldn't isn't very realistic.

I'm married, middle-aged, and I have what I consider to be an active sex life for me. My husband and I pay attention to it, foster it, take time for it, talk to each other about it, and in fact we schedule sex, schedule what we call date nights. When I was younger, the thought of doing that seemed very peculiar and I believed it would somehow dampen my desire or take the spontaneity out of the whole thing. Today I know that's not the case at all, and in fact it has the opposite effect. I look forward to it, we prepare for it, we take our time, and frankly I'm having better sex today than I ever have.

At the same time, we both feel differently about sex and about our own bodies and our own ways of sexual response than we did even ten years ago, and of course we were both very different sexually when we were in our 20s and 30s. We're both physically fit and relatively healthy, always have been, and that probably helps. Still, we're aging. There's no denying that. We're going to continue to age, and we'll continue to change.

I'm thinking that's normal. Moving into middle age does change everything, and learning how to handle those changes is often pretty difficult. It was for me, and it was somewhat difficult for my husband too. And I'm still learning. I don't believe it's realistic to expect my sexuality and my responses to sex to be the same as they were when I was 16 or 35 or even 45. Then again, I wonder if very many people ever find themselves in a period in their lives when sex is perfect and their sexual relationship and way of relating sexually to their partner is perfect. Or if it is, I wonder how long that apparent perfection lasts, at any age. I just wish we could all be more patient with ourselves and with each other.

at the LACK OF A FEMALE SEX DRIVE. If this is about someone wanting control it is about WOMEN wanting to make sure the market isn't flooded.

We are used to older men being more sexual, marrying younger women, having children. But older women? We are supposed to stay on the shelf sexually. We are only supposed to like sex to please the waning sex drives of our husbands.

Did it ever occur to anyone that Hillary's problem is not that she is a woman, but that she is an older woman? We are not used to older women having such power. SEX = POWER. SEX = ENERGY. SEX = YOUTH.

Can't have the status quo upset now, can we?

Bingo. I think you've hit the nail on the head there and its amazing how many people miss that point altogether.

And its fascinating to see people emerge from all ends of a political spectrum trying to deny others that choice. But despite all their protestations of ethics, sticking it to the man, health, or liberation. I think at heart they don't want to others to gain control of their bodies - that would seem to weaken their stated positions of ideology and lessen their own power.

P.S. There's an easy way to tell if some married women's low libido is due to their current relationship. Give them this drug and see how many go have affairs.

Like several other posters, my libido jumped off a cliff at age 48. I've been off and on HRT and HRT brought it back for a time, but then I changed to a low-dose patch and gone again.

This is how I *know* it's hormonal. When I first got on HRT I felt like I was 16 again. When I got on the low-dose patch, poof. I'm in a good relationship with a kind man I trust. He takes blood pressure medication and that's another issue. You young guys who think ED is all in a guy's head, wait till you get older, sorry. Smoking can cause ED too.

But back to me. I wouldn't have a sex drive if George Clooney walked in my bedroom with three dozen rozes, a Hitachi magic wand and the Hope Diamond. I'd take it just to help add good things to my good relationship.

I also noticed I lost more than my sex drive. I lost a part of my "oomph" in other parts of life. I think there's some kind of emotional or aesthetic component to at least the female libido that I also lost--I no longer get as *rapt* at certain music or get a certain kind of mystical feeling about gardening or things like that. I wonder if this drug would help me keep the ommph at work, not that I don't have it, but some part of the all-round wonder of life has lessened which leads me to believe part of that was hormonal, too.