Can 'Female Viagra' Save Monogamy?

Men and women in new relationships generally share equal levels of lust for each other. But as the relationship goes on, for reasons scientists don't fully understand, a woman's desire tends to dive dramatically, while a man's does not. Naturally, the pharmaceutical industry would like to solve and profit from this problem. Enter Lybrido and Lybridos, new drugs that could help keep the flame alive. Although they're often described as "female Viagra," there is an important distinction: "[Viagra] causes physical shifts that allow the penis to rise," writes Daniel Bergner in the New York Times. "A female-desire drug would be something else. It would adjust the primal and executive regions of the brain. It would reach into the psyche."

They both work by releasing two active chemicals to increase the dominance of dopamine—the neurotransmitter that drives lust—over serotonin. The drugs are still being tested, but the scientist behind them says the trials have been positive and if approved by the FDA, they could be on the market by 2016. "We had sex five times a week when before it was once a week," says one Lybrido test subject. "I wanted to have sex even after we had sex." Click to read the full article (it's a long one) at the Times. (More Viagra stories.)