Women who would like to increase their sex drives will have to continue to rely on bulls’… Women who would like to increase their sex drives will have to continue to rely on bulls’ testicles and Peru’s maca root for a little while longer.

The Food and Drug Administration is likely to delay the approval of the hormone patch Intrinsa, which works to restore a woman’s sex drive. An FDA panel recommended that more research into the drug’s short-term and long-term risks be completed before the patch can be approved. Another issue the panel addressed is that of sexual dysfunction. Some panelists argued that while Viagra is designed to correct a male mechanical problem, Intrinsa is simply used to increase female sexual desire.

The old argument sounds familiar; it’s the argument insurance companies use to cover Viagra prescriptions for men while denying coverage for the birth control pill for women. Apparently, when men don’t want to have sex every five minutes, they’re not normal, but when women want to have sex more often without having 13 children, they’re freaks.

I learned this lesson a while ago when I was trying to get my birth control covered by my insurance company. They wanted a letter from my doctor stating that she was prescribing birth control for non-sexual purposes. I had a prescription from my doctor; what more did they need to know? Did they want a report of my sexual activity, a list of partners? Whether or not I was using maca root? A fertility test? A chart of my monthly cycle? Should the prescription come with a note of moral concern from my insurance company?

We can forget about Intrinsa ever being covered by insurance; it would be promoting female sexuality under a Republican administration that opposes sex education, emergency contraception and a women’s right to choose. Recently, some researchers have testified in the Senate that porn is just as addictive and detrimental to life as crack or heroin. Meanwhile, Bob Dole, a former Republican presidential candidate, is the popular spokesperson for Viagra.

While it seems that Intrinsa might need more time before it is approved by the FDA, it is interesting that only recently in a post-Viagra world has Intrinsa emerged. More than 30 years ago, researchers discovered that testosterone use in women could increase their sex drives. However, they found it difficult to find sponsors and institutes that would conduct further studies. Introducing the birth control pill and something like Intrinsa at once might have proved too much for a society that fears that sex-crazed women might run rampant.

“Thousands of years ago, patriarchal societies feared women’s sexuality — felt it was necessary to curb their desire. Voracity had to be controlled,” says Dr. Crista Johnson, a fellow at the University of California at Los Angeles Female Sexual Medicine Center in an article with MSNBC. We still see this today in many incidents, such as female genital mutilation. We also see this repression of female sexual desire in some religions, such as certain sects of Islam. And Christianity. And Judiasm. Basically, this is found in some sects of many religions.

So what exactly is so scary about women increasing their sexual desire? Perhaps the popular notion that men want “A lady in the street but a freak in the bed.” While men would probably be thrilled to be having more sex, they also wouldn’t want their female partners thinking about sex all the time and starting to eye up their male friends and the pool boy.

Men, who seem to have a higher sex drive, don’t want women acting like them. What would happen then? Women would suddenly start watching male sporting events, demanding that the uniforms be more revealing. These sex-crazed women would have torrid affairs with younger men while encouraging their husbands to get plastic surgery. When they hit a mid-life crisis and the affairs get serious, they’ll leave their husbands with the kids and send alimony and child support checks occasionally while sipping margaritas in Mexico with the pool boy.

Or couples could have more sexually fulfilling long-term relationships on both ends. Men wouldn’t be bored, and women would look forward to having sex. Maybe they’d even have real orgasms on a Viagra/Intrinsa combo. Now that would be shocking.

E-mail Jen Stephan at [email protected] to wish her luck in selling Intrinsa on the black market after graduation.