For decades, women have complained that their hormone contraception was interfering with their sex life, lowering their libido, making it difficult to achieve orgasm or causing dryness or pain during intercourse. And, for decades, many doctors dismissed those concerns.
Now a study of over 1,000 women published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine reveals these complaints were right. According to the results, women taking hormone contraceptives in any form (pill, patch, etc.) are at the highest risk of female sexual dysfunction (FSD), suggesting that the synthetic hormones block your body’s natural sexual response.
Now that doesn’t mean you should go without contraception if you don’t want to conceive. In fact, women using non-hormonal birth control methods (such as condoms and a non-hormonal IUD) were at lowest risk for FSD—more than women not using any contraception at all. The likely reason is that the fear of getting pregnant during unprotected sex leads to stress that understandably makes it difficult to enjoy the intimacy.
I’ll admit that I’m a longtime fan of non-hormonal contraception methods since they allow you the freedom of safe sex without having to put chemicals into your body. I recommend using condoms with spermicide lubricant for short-term partners and the non-hormonal IUD ParaGard for long-term, monogomous relationships. Avoid the Sponge unless you’re using it as a backup method for condoms since it has a much lower effectiveness rate, about 84% to 89%, which is way too low for my liking. And, unless you’re extremely diligent and don’t mind skipping sex on the days in your cycle when soaring testosterone makes it most enjoyable, I’d avoid the rhythm method as well.
[photo: Katie Tegtmeyer]
