Love on Ice - My Wife Lost Her Sex Drive 9 Years ago. She Only Has Orgasms If We Use a Vibrator

Oral contraceptive use has blunted his wife’s sex drive and made sex painful and undesirable for her. What’s the cause and what can be done?

Case #: 494

Concern：

Two months after my wife started taking the birth control pill, she lost her sex drive. That was 9 years ago. She only has orgasms if we use a vibrator. Sex is painful for her always. She doesn't have the sexual interest to allow us to take our time. She just wants to get it over with. We both dearly love each other and give each other affection. What can we do? We really need help.

Discussion：

How awful that sex has been such an issue for your relationship! I’m glad you’ve been able to work through it until now, and I hope to shed light on some of the sexual mechanisms at work here. It seems to me that the root cause of all the sexual discomfort your wife is experiencing is the birth control she’s been taking. It’s very responsible of you two to take control of your procreative ability, however, I fear that it may be at the cost of your wife’s sexual enjoyment and your peace of mind!

Pill Poppers

Oral contraceptives, aka The Pill, contain two hormones—estrogen and progesterone. Estrogen is a necessary hormone for females; it causes breast development, and maintains a healthy genital environment by keeping the vagina moist and stretchy, and keeping the muscles of the entire pelvic region strong and toned. Progesterone helps normalize the way the uterus grows and discards it’s lining each month, and does other minor regulatory procedures such as preventing insomnia and helping with bloating. While these two hormones are explicitly listed in the birth control ingredients, there are two additional hormones that occasionally come into play when a woman takes The Pill: prolactin and oxytocin.

Prolactin is not normally present in a sexually active woman’s body—in fact, when estrogen levels are high, prolactin levels are supposed to be low. Prolactin is only meant to become a major hormone when women are breastfeeding—it promotes milk letdown, but also causes a woman to be uninterested in sex. Prolactin levels rise after birth to encourage the mother to bond with her child, and to protect her from becoming pregnant again too quickly.

For some reason, women taking oral contraceptives show statistically higher levels of prolactin than do their non contraceptive-taking counterparts. This is bad news. Not only does prolactin prompt a woman to spurn sex and make her less sensitive to clitoral stimulation, when prolactin levels are high, estrogen levels are low, shutting down important sexual functions such as vaginal lubrication, which can lead a woman to pain during intercourse and a loss to her enjoyment in sex, even when you coerce her into it.

Oxytocin is the other hormone that is inadvertently affected when taking oral contraceptives. Oxytocin, known as the “bonding hormone”, is released during touching, kissing, and all generally loving behaviors. It is what triggers the uterus to spasm during orgasm, and without enough of it, it becomes very difficult to have an orgasm at all. Unfortunately, while the Pill increases prolactin levels, it decreases oxytocin levels.

That means the woman taking oral contraception is going to be less sensitive to stimulation, and is going to have a difficult time achieving orgasm, if at all. Besides that, she isn’t going to want to have sex to begin with, due to the prolactin overload, and she probably isn’t going to be lubricated well enough, so sex can hurt.

Your Breast Friend

If you and your wife decide you would like to continue with the Pill, there are several ways to increase your wife’s sexual pleasure and encourage her to desire sex again. To begin with, it is vital that you look into some sort of detoxifying tonic to flush out the excess prolactin and improve circulation to the genital area. After having removed the buildup, you can begin to restore harmony to her body and your sex life. Start by introducing phytoestrogen rich foods into her diet. Phytoestrogens are found in plants and mimic estrogens in humans.

They can be found in soy, legumes, beans, and flax seeds. This should revitalize her estrogen levels, prompting her body to restart its sexual practices. Whilst you begin the preceding, but have yet to see concrete results, try, when you engage in intercourse, to concentrate extensively on her breasts.

Oxytocin is released through nipple and breast stimulation especially, and by doing so you will increase her sexual pleasure and start the reaction that ends in orgasm. Studies show that while women might not wish to engage in sex, once their bodies start to respond, their minds generally do, too.

Most importantly, use lots and lots of lubrication! You cannot rely on her body to produce enough lubrication at this time, and it is very injurious to a woman to have sex without enough.