‘The Pill’ Does Not Kill Sexual Desire

A new study busts the myth that contraceptives curb desire, finding other factors like age and length of relationship are more important.

Contraceptives are designed to prevent unwanted pregnancies and, for some, to protect people from sexually transmitted infections.

A very popular anecdote is that using contraceptives — particularly oral hormone contraceptives, the pill — decreases desire.

But so far, scientific evidence has been mixed, with some studies supporting the claim and others suggesting the opposite.

Researchers from the University of Kentucky and Indian University carried out two studies to explore the impact of using different contraceptives on the sexual desire of women and men in relationships.

They measured solitary and dyadic sexual desire — that is, libido alone or with a partner — of more than 900 people using a tool called the Sexual Desire Inventory.

The findings revealed significant differences in the way contraceptives affected the desire of women alone and in their relationships: women on non-hormonal contraceptives reported higher desire on their own and women on oral contraceptives reported higher desire with their partner.

However, when the researchers adjusted the results to take into account relationship length and age, the differences were no longer significant, suggesting that it’s the context rather than the contraceptive type that has the biggest impact on desire.

“Our findings are clear: the pill doesn’t kill desire. This research helps to bust those myths and hopefully eventually get rid of this common cultural script in our society,” says Dr. Kristen Mark, a lead author of the study, which appears in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.