Taking the pill does not reduce a woman's sex drive - unless she starts taking it during a relationship
Many women worry their sex drive will drop if they start taking the contraceptive pill.
But new research has revealed this is not always the case.
Researchers found that women’s sexual satisfaction is not affected if she meets her partner while she is already taking the pill.
However, women do see their sex drive fall if they stop taking the pill during a relationship.
The team, which included researchers from the universities of Stirling, Glasgow, Newcastle and Northumbria - as well as Charles University in Prague - studied 365 couples.
They investigated how both sexual and non-sexual aspects of long-term relationships were influenced by women's current and historical use of hormonal contraception.
Lead researcher Dr Craig Roberts from Stirling's Division of Psychology said: ‘Our findings showed women who had met their partner while taking the pill and were still currently taking it - as well as those who had never used the pill at any point - reported greater sexual satisfaction than those women who had begun or stopped using the pill during the course of the relationship.
‘In other words, the congruence of women's pill use throughout the relationship had a greater influence on sexual satisfaction levels than either simply being on the pill or not being on the pill.’
The study, published this week in the journal Psychological Science, found there was no difference in the non-sexual aspects of relationship satisfaction between the groups of women.
Women's history of pill use was also found to make no difference to their male partners' relationship satisfaction in both sexual and non-sexual contexts.
Dr Roberts said: ‘Previous research has shown that hormonal contraceptives, such as the pill, subtly alter women's ideal partner preferences and that often women who are using the pill when they meet their partner find the same partner less physically attractive when they come off the pill.
‘Our new results support these earlier findings but, crucially, they also point to the impact a change in hormonal contraceptive use during a relationship - either starting or stopping - can have on a woman's sexual satisfaction with her partner.
The hormones in the pill subtly change which men a woman is attracted to. This means that if she starts or stops taking it during a relationship her sex drive may fall as she no longer finds her partner as attractive
‘The pill has been a tremendously positive social force, empowering women and giving them greater control over their lives, but there is also a lot of controversy surrounding the question of whether hormonal contraceptives alter women’s libido and sexual satisfaction.’
He added: ‘These results show that examining current use is not enough to answer this question.
‘What seems to be important is whether a woman’s current use matches her use when she began the relationship with her partner.
‘We hope our results will help women understand why they might feel the way they do about their partner when they change use.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2628230/The-pill-DOESNT-reduce-womans-sex-drive-unless-starts-taking-shes-relationship.html#ixzz31tToXqWr
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