Resumo de Why I Lost My Sex Drive

The debate about the effect of the combined oral Pill on a woman's sex drive has raged ever since it became available in the early 1960s. I was one of the first doctors to prescribe them in general practice and most of the women who were given them told me that their libido was improved. This was probably because before then my patients had been terrified of becoming pregnant and this worry had dominated their sex lives.
More careful analysis suggested that oral contraceptives quadrupled the number of women admitting to their GPs that they were suffering from a lack of sexual drive. Later analysis of these figures, suggested that some of the increase was probably because collecting the prescription for the pill gave patients a chance to talk to their doctor about their sex lives.

Since the report there has been a mass of studies on the effect of the pill on sexual drive. The general view is that the pill may increase libido, decrease it, or leave it unaltered - not a useful conclusion for someone who, like you, finds that they have little sex drive.
However, there is no doubt that in a minority of women the loss of libido is a side effect of taking the pill - but just how big this minority is, is uncertain.
Until now the accepted opinion has been that the libido will return to its previous level once the Pill is discontinued. However, the recent research that you refer to in your letter seems to indicate that in some women the libido doesn't pick up once the pill has been abandoned.
And it is not true to say - as is often said - that an appetite for sex in women varies as much as an appetite for food because hunger will eventually prevail in the starving. Libido varies in a woman's life according to her age. It is usually low when she is a teenager and in her early 20s (as you see), usually increases in the late twenties and thirties, and varies enormously after the menopause. Pregnancy decreases the sex drive in many women but increases it in a minority.
Giving birth and breast-feeding usually reduce it. Sexual drive even varies throught the month. It tends to be greatest around the mid-cycle, at the time of ovulation, and softie studies suggest that it is also greater in those not taking the pill just before a period.
The range and number of factors affecting libido is so great that it is impossible to define a normal female response. However, it is true that it is usual for young women, whose sexual response is still developing, not to be hugely interested in sex. Not unnaturally, these women wonder if the pill is responsible.
A woman's sex life is more dependent on her emotions than is a man's. Her approach to sex may have been as much determined by the warmth and physical demonstrations of love between her parents, as well as between her parents and herself in her childhood household, as by her later hormone levels.
A woman's ability to feel at ease with a man. So that her sexual inhibitions may be abandoned and her desires given free rein, is as likely to be related to her feelings of a sense of security as to her levels of oestrogen or androgen.
It would be a good idea to try different types of the combined pill. Their side effects vary, but if none suits you and there is no improvement in your libido, it might be worthwhile switching to another method of birth control. Have a chat with your doctor.

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