Q I’m a woman in my 20s, and I’ve been dating the love of my life for two years now. We are incredibly happy except for—guess!—we have different sex drives. When we first started dating, I initiated sex all the time and enjoyed it, but as soon as I started on birth control, my libido evaporated. After a nightmarish year of trying different methods, arguing with doctors, and hurt feelings, I decided that it wasn’t worth it, and we’ve stopped using any hormonal birth control (we’re using condoms).
“Birth control pills can decrease sexual desire if they substantially lower testosterone levels,” says Cindy M. Meston, professor of clinical psychology at University of Texas at Austin and author of Why Women Have Sex. “The pill supplies a steady dose of hormones, so that the body stops producing its own unsteady, cyclical dose.” The pill keeps your estrogen level high in order to prevent ovulation, while also “increasing the sex-hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), which binds to testosterone, thus blocking it from being ‘read’ by the body.”
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I also shared your e-mail with Debby Herbenick, PhD, sexual-health educator at the Kinsey Institute and author of Because It Feels Good, and she feels there’s a chance your problem isn’t hormonal.
“She should work with her partner,” says Herbenick. “Talk about the situation, acknowledge that sometimes she doesn’t want sex, or that type of sex.” Herbenick believes a temporary “ban on intercourse”—or taking “vaginal off the menu,” as I’ve recommended in similar circumstances—”can help couples learn to touch each other again with pleasure.”
Q I have a dilemma. Even though I was born in 1972, people always assume that I’m in my mid-20s. I tend to attract girls in their early 20s, and when they ask how old I am, I counter with “How old do you think I am?” They invariably guess an age that I haven’t seen in more than a decade. When I tell these 21- to 23-year-olds the truth, it’s a complete turnoff. Just last night I had to endure—that’s endure, not Ensure—my third brush-off at the hands of a hot 21-year-old girl in a row!
Let younger women think you’re in your 20s until they get to know you better. Then disclose and apologize for the deceit without being too abject about it. You had cause. As for women closer to your own age, well, instead of telling them you’re very nearly 40, YOUNG, let ’em think you’re a twentysomething with a thing for older women. Then if a puma—or panther or cougar or otter or whatever—decides to dump you because she’s getting too attached and the (presumed) age difference is simply too great, bust out your birth certificate, apologize, and propose.
