What Has Viagra Done For Women?

Viagra has been almost as influential as the Pill in changing attitudes and behaviour.

Over the past ten years, rates of infections such as gonorrhoea have increased by 227 per cent in men aged 45-64, more than four times faster than the increase in the rate among teenagers. There are similar dramatic increases in other sexual infections in the same male age group, with chlamydia increasing by 315 per cent between 1997 and 2006.

After the difficult birth of her second child, Miranda, like many women, experienced a loss of libido. 'I must have been in labour for 20 hours,' recalls the mother-of-two from Amersham, Buckinghamshire. 'The birth did a lot of damage to me physically and I just didn't want my husband near me afterwards. I don't know if I had post-natal depression as well, but things were not good.'

Dismayed by his wife's constant rejection, Miranda's husband of 14 years, a 39-year- old professional, began to have problems of his own.

'The fact that I was constantly pushing him away really got to him. He went to the G, and, after various other suggestions, he came back with a supply of Viagra which, if anything, made the problems between us even worse.

'It doesn't work to have a man wanting sex all the time if his partner is not interested,' says Miranda. Fortunately, the couple were able to resolve their problems.

Gwen, a 61 year-old teacher from London, lays the blame for the breakdown of her 35-year marriage at the door of Viagra.

Her problems began when her husband, a business administrator, underwent a prostate operation which left him impotent.

'He saw several doctors and none of them suggested discussing his medical treatment with his wife,' she said. 'With Viagra he felt his virility had returned, but we had to make a decision about when to have sex because you have to take the drug an hour or two beforehand. I felt under pressure to co-operate even when I didn't feel like it.

'It was like a form of harassment, and I felt it wasn't me he was having sex with. I was being used to fuel a fantasy I wasn't part of.'

The couple separated and are now divorced.