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Ah, the simplicity of being a man. Problems in bed? Find something that redirects blood flow to your… problem area… and poof! Problem solved.

But as Time Magazine reports, being a woman with the same sort of problem and wow, are you ever in trouble.

The article covers a few of the (many, many, many) issues surrounding Female Sexual Disorder (or Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, HSDD). The topic is something of a tricky minefield of sociology, biology, neurochemistry and a hefty dose of shamanism for good measure… whether the problem is in women’s brain chemistry, in their social stresses, or if it exists at all are questions that aren’t easily answered.

The drug the report focuses on increased “sexually satisfying events” for females suffering from HSDD by about 50% over a 24-week trial (from 2.8 “events” every four weeks to 4.5 by the end of the study). Impressive, but only a small increase versus the placebo group (who were reporting 3.7 “events” at the end of the trial)… the drug company claims that 0.8 increase in “events” is statistically significant.

I just like putting the word “event” in quotation marks.

Seriously, this is something of a problem for many women and not one that should be dismissed lightly. Even if we assume that the drug works, it’s not actually fixing the problem… it’s just letting couple deal with the fallout in a healthier manner. The stresses (or underlying messed up neurology, if that’s the case) are still there… and ignoring the problem by popping pills can’t be healthy in the long term. It also drives home the concept that women who don’t want sex have something fundamentally wrong with them and it should be quickly fixed, rather than determining the underlying problems and working on those. This is a very traditional “treat the symptoms, not the disease” sorta fix.

Personally, I don’t think they should market a drug that claims to increase a woman’s sex drive until they market one that can decrease a man’s sex drive… then at least couples would have a choice.