Anastasia of Sexualité has an interesting post on an unexpected-to-me consequence of the introduction to Viagra.

...However, just when sexual therapists have prepared to put down their diplomas and clean up their offices, the wide use of the blue pill seems to have spawned female patients, majority of them partners of avid Viagra users.

These females are now rushing in despair to their sex therapists to get an explanation as to why this little blue pill can arouse her husband when she could not no matter what she did.  A lot of questions along the same line of thought are now being discussed in the privacy of the offices of sexual therapists.

It appears that Viagra has not really displaced the sexual therapists after all.There was only a change of clients, from the male species suffering the erectile dysfunction symptoms to the female species who are suffering from busted egos and insecurities.

She said it here.

The good news is I’m guessing that to the extent women are concerned about this a sex therapist can probably help them work it out in very short order.

1) On the one hand, as the sex class men are indoctrinated to value themselves in direct proportion to their ability to, well, be sexual. On the other hand men, assumed by heteronormativity to be the ideal against which all other sexuality is measured, learn almost nothing about how thoroughly enjoyable sex without penetration can be. Consequently we tend to back off, sometimes sharply, from all sexual activity if we’re even afraid we might not “perform.”

2) The kind of erectile dysfunction that Viagra treats has a lot more to do with anatomy than psychology. Yes, it won’t make you have an erection if you’re not at least somewhat organically aroused (for that you need something really direct like Caverject) but it’s main effect is on the cardiovascular system, not the brain.

3) Consequently if someone (the article says women but obviously it could be any partner of a man with erection difficulties) is beating him or herself up about desirability in the face of Viagra they’re doing so unnecessarily. Between the psychological self-defeat of erection difficulty on the one hand, and the benefit of anxiety relief due to Viagra’s hydraulic effect, it’s just hard to see why a caring and/or sympathetic partner needs to feel responsible for prior difficulties.

4) But that’s with caring partners. Side B of Viagra, though, is that as the sex class men are expected to be able and willing to have sex even when other considerations that would be seen as reasonable libido-suppressors in women — things like stress, alienation, or alienation of affection, for instance… or even maybe pressure from a partner for sex! And the advent of Viagra undermines the excuse of physiology.

I know, I know, as the no-sex class heterosexual women are never supposed to have desires unless their partners initiate it but… um, yeah, about that. But a) almost everything we “know” about sex we know about people between roughly ages 15 and 30 but after about age 40 everything we “know” starts becoming even less true, and b) nothing anybody has ever said, anywhere, about libido imbalances and its consequences has required that the imbalance be men high, women low. So…

5) As reality continues to intrude on our still-rigid definitions of masculinity and femininity and who’s “supposed” to initiate, I’m guessing that sex therapists are going to begin seeing even less expected and also more serious confrontations arising from greater availability of drugs like Viagra.

Petra Boynton takes a look at the recent story about Viagra possibly working for women on anti-depressants. I actually thought the press handled the press release relatively well compared to earlier stories that semen alleviates depression or this not-even-meant-as-a-prank fellatio/breast-cancer-prevention story from last year. That’s actually not a vote of confidence though. While most of the articles have been surprisingly clear that the viagra thing worked for only a very small subset of women with sexual side-effects from anti-depressants Boynton has other concerns.

The media coverage has been predictably uncritical. It has tended to suggest that Viagra is a wonder drug that will save depressed women, and as a subtext suggested it could also help the sex lives who weren’t depressed too.

If you are a woman or the partner of a woman with depression there are several things you need to know about this research before you go asking your doctor for a Viagra script.

The study does rightly state that some anti depressants can lead to sexual problems (usually the inability to have an orgasm through intercourse or masturbation, taking longer than usual to reach orgasm, and/or a lack of lubrication). In order to be an issue, however, women can’t just have these symptoms – they have to be bothered by them too. Meaning if a woman finds it difficult to reach orgasm but isn’t distressed by this then it is not an issue requiring clinical intervention. It’s worth noting that depression can lead to women finding it difficult to reach orgasm or have any desire for sex. It can be worrying for a depressive patient who recieves pharmacological treatment and expects to feel better to discover their sex life hasn’t returned in the way they wanted.

Read Boynton’s full analysis here.

While research subjects were chosen from women who didn’t have orgasmic difficulty until they began taking anti-depressants Boynton points out that care givers nor patients (nor, perhaps, patient’s partners) might not be so discriminating.

[T]his is not always just down to the side-effects of medication – the underlying causes of the depression may not have gone away and could easily still be contributing to a woman’s sexual problems. For example problems within a relationship, family difficulties, work problems, economic or housing difficulties, issues with childcare, isolation or a lack of support could all be contributing to a woman’s sexual difficulties.

And that gets to a point I think about a lot when I think about men and Viagra. And depression. And consent.

I don’t have erectile dysfunction, or at least not yet — I’m only in my 50s — but I do have mild bouts of… I’ll call it “physical” depression because while I still feel optimistic, cheerful, even playful mood-wise I get loss of energy, shyness or withdrawal, sleeping a lot more than usual, oh, and two other symptoms that I think of a sure-fire indicators: resumption of nicotine cravings (even though I quit years ago) and diminished libido. I’m in the middle of one of those slumps this summer, which partly explains my slow posting rate, my horrible personal-correspondence rate. (This doesn’t count as the apology to everyone who’s map I’ve seemingly dropped myself off of.) As in Boynton’s last paragraph external factors such as having children and partner home for the summer, a busy travel season, various elderly but fairly distant relatives passing away, a ton of projects around the house, and an extended allergy season are seriously contributing factors.

I actually think I’m starting to come out of the slump a bit — as is often the case we only notice these things when things start to improve, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have posted about it in the first place if I wasn’t perking up a bit. But I digress… if only slightly.

Anyway, I was already sort of thinking about in my earlier pink-is-for-girls/blue-is-for-boys pill post but it seems like some of the consequences of the Viagra for Women story illuminates similar problems for men.

For instance while my partner and I are pretty compatible when it comes to conflict resolution in the past I’ve been involved with people who loved both to argue and to then have make-up sex. I’m not sure if I’m just sensitive (I once slept, literally slept slept, on a mattress made entirely of sacks of dried peas so I can’t be too sensitive) but after an argument all I want is a lot of time, alone, to process. The last think I want is physical contact, let alone sexual contact! Which with one partner in particular was cause for further acrimony as she was pretty insistent that make-up sex was important in relationships.

Had Viagra been available at the time I might have felt it was a good solution to “my problem” with sexual interest after arguments. Instead the solution I eventually found was to end our relationship — which was probably for the best for both of us considering our, well, other considerable incompatibilities.

Anyway, just to be clear this isn’t a “what about the menz, we getz pressher too” post. Instead it’s just an observation that some of the concerns anticipated in the event a “female libido” pill is developed might be examined among depressed or alienated Viagra users.

Because (as I mentioned in that pink/blue post) while Viagra has certainly been trumpeted as a “get back the feeling” drug for men it’s also been an “it’s about time” drug for their partners. Who, after all, are often healthy and generally younger humans and therefore as likely to desire sex and intimacy as… men in similar situations who despair of their partner’s libido.

So… I’m a little rattled today (believe me that didn’t help although a lot of unbidden tears throughout the day hasn’t hurt either!) Anyway, I’m not sure any of this makes sense.

I’m just saying that from my own situational, post-argument disinterest in sex, and my experience of pressure to meet a partner’s expectations in those situations, I’m just saying that an enterprising young student of psychology or relationship therapy might get a nice paper out of studying some of the perhaps less obvious reasons men might take Viagra… with it’s possible insights into potential consequences of “Viagra for women.”