G
Guest
Guest
Funny article, made me larf. - Perdita
Sex research comes to anti-climax - SUSAN MAUSHART
WHEN I first read the news that US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer was pulling out of the search for "pink Viagra", I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or emit a cascading series of low guttural moans. Which is funny because, in most other respects, the experience was nothing like a conversation with my mother. After eight years of clinical trials involving 3000 women, Pfizer has "discovered" – in the words of the London Sunday Telegraph – "that men and women have a fundamentally different relationship between arousal and desire." (Damn! No wonder that underwire jockstrap was such an anti-climax!) Now, I suppose, researchers will be moving on to something even more urgent. The impact of dental floss on oral sex, maybe.
"The brain is the crucial sexual organ in a woman," announced Dr Mitra Boolel, the bloke at the business end of Pfizer’s sex research team.
To me, his regret seemed almost palpable (though possibly he was just glad to see me). Heaven knows, since the company launched Viagra in 1998, its growth spurt has been nothing short of elephantine, earning Pfizer upwards of £1 billion ($2.5 billion) a year. Now anybody would have thought that turning 23 million wilted willies into gold would be achievement enough for a lifetime. But noooooo. Pfizer was determined to mount the same research offensive (and I do mean offensive) on the female population as well. Well, I guess you could say we were asking for it.
In one early trial, researchers gave six women Viagra and six others a placebo before watching a series of erotic videos. The good news was that every single one of them became sexually excited. The bad news was that the women didn’t. Those who had taken the Viagra did show definite physiological signs of arousal – ie, greater pelvic blood flow. But their reported desire for sex remained flat, in curious contradistinction to their reported desire for a medium popcorn and a diet vanilla Coke, which went through the roof. The problem, Pfizer’s decidedly deflated researchers have concluded, is that females suffer a "disconnect" between genital changes and sexual readiness. (Anecdotal evidence suggests we suffer a similar "disconnect" between the urge to urinate and the act of wetting ourselves.) "Men consistently get erections in the presence of naked women and want to have sex," says Dr Boolel. Yet for some reason, females don’t. (Women! You give them everything men want, and they’re still not satisfied.)
The pfolks at Pfizer aren’t the ones who’ve been left unsatisfied. Many pfeminists are pretty pfed up as well. "Boolel’s study is garbage," writes a blogger named Kaitlyn, who points out that "millions of women use porn, participate in casual sex, use sex toys, etc. AND WE LOVE IT." In her own quiet way, Kaitlyn confides, "I get really sick of sexist a--holes telling me what turns me on." Now let me just say that (if memory serves) I enjoy having indiscriminate, unbridled and ideologically incorrect sex as much as the next girl. But we’ve got to put our money where our relevant orifices are – just as the drug companies do. Call it kinky, Kaitlyn, but did it ever occur to you that some of us might enjoy being pfondled by Pfizer?
The real challenge for the pharmaceutical industry now, says Dr Marianne Legato, professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University, "is to find a pill for engendering the perception of intimacy". Well, hoity-toity. Rohypnol ain’t good enough for her?
New Jersey-based drug company Palatin Technologies, meanwhile, are hot to trot with their new "lust drug", PT-141, which they claim will both increase libido and suppress appetite. That sounds pretty good – especially for those of us prone to calling for fried foods at inopportune moments. Though still at the foreplay stage, the sniffable spray – due for release in the US in 2008 – has allegedly achieved a 70 per cent success rate in trials. It’s not only effective, it’s safe. After all, notes Palatin president Dr Carl Spana, "You can’t put it in a drink, and sticking it up a girl’s nose is hard to do surreptitiously."
They think of everything these days, don’t they? Candy may be dandy, and liquor quicker, but a nasal spray that targets the brain’s arousal centre . . . now that’s what I call romance.
Other observers sniff that psychopharmacology will never have all the answers to female sexual responsiveness. The real way forward, they remind us, is implants. In the US, clinical trials of an implantable device popularly known as the "orgasmatron" began in November last year. Surgeon Stuart Melroy, a pain specialist based in North Carolina, has signed up one volunteer to be fitted with the device, but is puzzled he hasn’t found more takers. It’s pretty mystifying. I mean what fun-loving girl wouldn’t want a bunch of electrodes inserted into her spinal cord? "I thought people would be beating my door down to become part of the trial," Melroy complained recently to New Scientist. Guys. Honestly. They’re never happy unless they’ve got the remote.
© The Australian - 17apr04
Sex research comes to anti-climax - SUSAN MAUSHART
WHEN I first read the news that US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer was pulling out of the search for "pink Viagra", I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or emit a cascading series of low guttural moans. Which is funny because, in most other respects, the experience was nothing like a conversation with my mother. After eight years of clinical trials involving 3000 women, Pfizer has "discovered" – in the words of the London Sunday Telegraph – "that men and women have a fundamentally different relationship between arousal and desire." (Damn! No wonder that underwire jockstrap was such an anti-climax!) Now, I suppose, researchers will be moving on to something even more urgent. The impact of dental floss on oral sex, maybe.
"The brain is the crucial sexual organ in a woman," announced Dr Mitra Boolel, the bloke at the business end of Pfizer’s sex research team.
To me, his regret seemed almost palpable (though possibly he was just glad to see me). Heaven knows, since the company launched Viagra in 1998, its growth spurt has been nothing short of elephantine, earning Pfizer upwards of £1 billion ($2.5 billion) a year. Now anybody would have thought that turning 23 million wilted willies into gold would be achievement enough for a lifetime. But noooooo. Pfizer was determined to mount the same research offensive (and I do mean offensive) on the female population as well. Well, I guess you could say we were asking for it.
In one early trial, researchers gave six women Viagra and six others a placebo before watching a series of erotic videos. The good news was that every single one of them became sexually excited. The bad news was that the women didn’t. Those who had taken the Viagra did show definite physiological signs of arousal – ie, greater pelvic blood flow. But their reported desire for sex remained flat, in curious contradistinction to their reported desire for a medium popcorn and a diet vanilla Coke, which went through the roof. The problem, Pfizer’s decidedly deflated researchers have concluded, is that females suffer a "disconnect" between genital changes and sexual readiness. (Anecdotal evidence suggests we suffer a similar "disconnect" between the urge to urinate and the act of wetting ourselves.) "Men consistently get erections in the presence of naked women and want to have sex," says Dr Boolel. Yet for some reason, females don’t. (Women! You give them everything men want, and they’re still not satisfied.)
The pfolks at Pfizer aren’t the ones who’ve been left unsatisfied. Many pfeminists are pretty pfed up as well. "Boolel’s study is garbage," writes a blogger named Kaitlyn, who points out that "millions of women use porn, participate in casual sex, use sex toys, etc. AND WE LOVE IT." In her own quiet way, Kaitlyn confides, "I get really sick of sexist a--holes telling me what turns me on." Now let me just say that (if memory serves) I enjoy having indiscriminate, unbridled and ideologically incorrect sex as much as the next girl. But we’ve got to put our money where our relevant orifices are – just as the drug companies do. Call it kinky, Kaitlyn, but did it ever occur to you that some of us might enjoy being pfondled by Pfizer?
The real challenge for the pharmaceutical industry now, says Dr Marianne Legato, professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University, "is to find a pill for engendering the perception of intimacy". Well, hoity-toity. Rohypnol ain’t good enough for her?
New Jersey-based drug company Palatin Technologies, meanwhile, are hot to trot with their new "lust drug", PT-141, which they claim will both increase libido and suppress appetite. That sounds pretty good – especially for those of us prone to calling for fried foods at inopportune moments. Though still at the foreplay stage, the sniffable spray – due for release in the US in 2008 – has allegedly achieved a 70 per cent success rate in trials. It’s not only effective, it’s safe. After all, notes Palatin president Dr Carl Spana, "You can’t put it in a drink, and sticking it up a girl’s nose is hard to do surreptitiously."
They think of everything these days, don’t they? Candy may be dandy, and liquor quicker, but a nasal spray that targets the brain’s arousal centre . . . now that’s what I call romance.
Other observers sniff that psychopharmacology will never have all the answers to female sexual responsiveness. The real way forward, they remind us, is implants. In the US, clinical trials of an implantable device popularly known as the "orgasmatron" began in November last year. Surgeon Stuart Melroy, a pain specialist based in North Carolina, has signed up one volunteer to be fitted with the device, but is puzzled he hasn’t found more takers. It’s pretty mystifying. I mean what fun-loving girl wouldn’t want a bunch of electrodes inserted into her spinal cord? "I thought people would be beating my door down to become part of the trial," Melroy complained recently to New Scientist. Guys. Honestly. They’re never happy unless they’ve got the remote.
© The Australian - 17apr04
