Today’s woman wants everything: a career, a home and independence. Going by definition, a modern woman should not be sexy. After all, where is the time? Added to that is the fact that the modern woman is supposed to be fighting for her rights and demanding equal status with her male colleagues.

She is pictured as someone who is keen to occupy the corner cabin. With all the harshness and aggression, does she ever have time to be sexual, have a desire for sex or even like sex?

Take any urban 20-something, just out of college and at her first job. While she is keen to do well in her job and get ahead, she is also ready to move out of her “virtually” cloistered world. Late nights that were taboo only a few days ago, are thrown out of the window. Boys who were hardly ever acknowledged and this happens when women are in single-sex colleges – suddenly become more than “just friends”.

And there starts the question of sexuality. However, all that sexuality goes for a toss when you seem to have no inclination towards sex. And if you have ever confided this lack of sex drive to somebody the answer you will get nine times out of 10 is that it is due to your hormones. The question is: do our hormones affect us? And if they do, how does that change our attitude to sex?

Barely 50 years ago, women had few methods of contraception and it was not unusual to find women in some stage of pregnancy through the year. Most of the time they had little time to think of sexuality. And as they grew older, many fall prey to all sorts of diseases. Today, however, things are different in urban societies.

Women are fitter. They know when to have children and, above all, most of these women are aware of their sexuality. The situation in the bedroom has certainly changed. In such a situation, there are many among us who squarely put the blame on hormones when sexual relationships go wrong and there is hardly any desire. Why does that happen?

While doctors and researchers have almost always blamed our hormones for the loss of libido, there is hardly any evidence that our hormones are the culprits. Have you ever wondered which hormones you have and what they actually do? A female ovary produces large amounts of the sex hormones – oestrogen and progesterone. Incidentally, they also produce small amounts of male hormones – testosterone and androstenedione.

To get the facts right, both males and females have two important hormones secreted by the pituitary gland, called FSH and LH. While FSH stands for follicle stimulating hormone – one that controls the formation of eggs by the ovary – the LH or luteinizing hormone controls the production of sex hormones by the ovaries.

A Swiss gynecologist believes LH is strongly linked to desire. In a monthly cycle, the level of oestrogen rises slowly during the first half of the month, going up sharply at ovulation on day 14 and then falls slowly just before the period occurs. Meanwhile, the level of progesterone rises sharply after ovulation, and then falls off just before the period.

According to a Swiss gynecologist, Dr Michel Jemec, LH is tied up with our level of desire for sex. But why is it that, while some of us feel sexier at a particular time during the monthly cycle, others do not? There are still others who feel the urgent need for sex before- or even during – their periods. Now, if all this was due to our hormones, why is it that we do not all feel sexy at the same point in the cycle? No one has been able to answer that question accurately.

However, it is generally agreed that women feel the increase in desire for sex just before a period because that is the time when the womb lining is thickest. That is the time women are extra sensitive in their genitals. Can that be the cause of our desire or libido? For those who are unaware, libido is totally different from physical desire and the consequent urge in the genitals. In fact, many women have gone on record to say that they have no libido but are physically aroused. These women find it difficult to have any desire for sex.

Women’s Problem

Professor Alan Riley of the University of Central Lancashire in the UK, one of the country’s top experts in sex problems, believes that lack of desire is the top problem that women suffer from and, what is worse, is that is difficult to treat. Dr Helen Singer Kaplan, the noted American professor in her book, Disorders of Sexual Desire, wrote a long time ago that “in human females, (o) estrogen does not enhance sexual desire.” She also pointed out that testosterone is the “libido hormone” for both males and females and has gone on to say that LH could be used clinically to increase libido.

Since then, pharma companies have been trying to sell the idea of testosterone but nothing much has happened to increase libido in women. Instead, women who have been subjected to testosterone have experienced hairiness, a deep voice and enlargement of the clitoris.

As for the female hormone LH, Dr Michel Jemec has come up with a theory that LH is strongly linked with libido.

One is still waiting for Dr Jemec to publish his findings in an important medical journal. Till then, we have to be content with the theory that our libido increases at the start of a new relationship – or the beginning of a marriage.

Perhaps, it has something to do with our brain that kick-start the sex drive. And, when these relationships become routine, we tend to have less of sex. We tend to have less of it when we know we can ‘have it’ any time.

Also, it must be noted that both partners usually work and are generally tired and stressed – sex at such times are a distinct “No, no!” What, then, is the way out for the woman whose sex drive isn’t up to the mark of late? First and foremost, take a look at your lifestyle. Once that is improved – a lot more rest and less strain of work – add some romance to the relationship and spend quality time together.