Changing Hormonal Contraceptives Can Influence Women's Sexual Satisfaction

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Do changes in hormonal contraceptive use have consequences in sexual satisfaction for women in long-term heterosexual relationships? A new study says yes.

Researchers from the universities of Stirling, Glasgow, Newcastle, Northumbria and Charles University in Prague looked into the sexual and non-sexual satisfaction of 365 couples and how they were influenced by the women's current and historical use of hormonal contraception.

"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," said lead researcher Craig Roberts from Stirling's Division of Psychology.

"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."

No difference was found in the non-sexual aspects of relationship satisfaction between the groups of women, while women's history of pill use made no difference to their male partners' relationship satisfaction in both sexual and non-sexual contexts.

"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," says Roberts.

"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 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."

"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."

Their findings were reported in a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Psychological Science.

Source: MNT


 
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