Is Talking The Female Viagra?

20/09/2010 10:38 | Updated 22 May 2015

If the media is anything to go by, you'd think everyone's having wild, non-stop sex theses days. But the truth is far less glamorous, as around half of all women in the UK are thought to be affected by low sex drive (according to the Sexual Dysfunction Association, around 30% of women have no sex drive whatsoever).

Stock.xchng, tizwas01

With a statistic like that, it's no wonder researchers have been frantically trying to develop a pill that could do for women what Viagra has done for men.

But psychologists writing in the Journal of Sexual Medicine say talking about your problems could be far more effective, at least where women are concerned.

The researchers invited a group of women to take a drug treatment that was designed to boost their sex drive. But half of the women received a dummy pill, or placebo, instead. What was interesting was that many of the women taking the placebo were among those whose sex lives had improved.

So could a sugar pill really boost your sex life? Perhaps, say the researchers, at least if you really believed it could. But the fact that the women also had counselling during the trial, where they were encouraged to talk about their problems with a health expert, is the most likely explanation, they claim.

Around one in three of the women taking the placebo said their sex lives had improved. Not a bad result for a sugar pill and a heart-to heart.

Would you take a pill to boost your sex life? Or do women require a different approach altogether? What do you think?


Suggest a correction