Is HSDD measurable in the brain?

Dive into a fascinating and provocative discussion about the growing trend of women using pharmaceuticals and hormones to boost their sex drive. Hosts Simone and Malcolm Collins explore the cultural, medical, and social implications of drugs like Addyi (the so-called “female Viagra”) and testosterone therapy, referencing recent New York Times articles and real-life stories.

The conversation covers:

* The science behind female libido and the diagnosis of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD)

* The rise of medications and hormone treatments aimed at increasing women’s sexual desire

* The cultural phenomenon of women openly discussing and experimenting with these treatments

* The impact on relationships, marriage, and family life

* The debate over whether society should encourage or question the pursuit of higher female sex drive

* The generational divide in attitudes toward sex and intimacy

* The risks, side effects, and ethical questions surrounding medicating for desire

Whether you’re curious about the latest trends in sexual health, interested in the intersection of medicine and culture, or just want to hear a candid, humorous take on a taboo topic, this episode is for you.

If you enjoy the discussion, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more thought-provoking conversations! Also, as this was a Simone-outlined episode, here are our show notes!

Episode Outline - The Women Drugging Themselves to Be Horny

Women Trying to Medicate Sex Drives / hypoactive sexual desire disorder

The Gist

* As much as we talk about everyone becoming increasingly sexless, there is a subset of women who are ALL ABOUT sex, and they’ll even go to great lengths to stoke sex drives when they have none

* Testosterone

* Flibanserin

* Dropping and changing birth control and other medications

* The NY Times has written various articles covering elements of this subset of women

* I’ll walk you through the issue

* And in the end, I want your take, and I want listener’s takes, on whether the pursuit of a higher female sex drive is important, neutral, or detrimental

Series of NY Times Stories on Women Pushing for Sex

Viagra for Women

The “gateway” article to this issue for me was about basically viagra for women—a medication called Filbanserin branded as Addyi that’s marketed as “the little pink pill” by a woman named Cindy Eckert who herself is famous for integrating pink into every aspect of her style.

Here’s a 2025 documentary premiering about it:

Cindy has been trying, through her company Sprout Pharmaceuticals, to promote Addyi for a decade

* Her work was recently covered by the NY Times:

* A Pill for Women’s Libido Meets a Cultural Moment

* A decade ago, Cindy Eckert struggled to convince skeptics about a drug for premenopausal women. Lately, her business is booming.

* https://archive.is/Z3BDp

Why Do Women Need Viagra?

Flibanserin is meant to treat Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (aka HSDD), which is a measurable condition

Women with HSDD have different brain activity

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18976696

* This functional MRI (fMRI) study compared brain activation and sexual response between:

* 20 women without sexual dysfunction (NHSD)

* 16 women diagnosed with HSDD

Participants were exposed to erotic, sports, and relaxing video segments. Researchers measured subjective sexual arousal, physiological arousal using a vaginal photoplethysmograph (VPP), and brain activation at three sessions.

The differences suggest that women with HSDD may have altered encoding or retrieval of arousing stimuli and possibly devote more cognitive attention to monitoring/evaluating their responses, which might interfere with normal sexual response. This is indicated by increased activation in specific brain areas linked to attention and evaluation.

So what does flibanserin do?

* Slightly increases sexual desire and activity

* Slightly lowers distress

* Causes drowsiness and lowers blood pressure, especially when combined with alcohol

* WHY NOT JUST DRINK???

The weird thing about this drug is that it’s not really effective.

The FDA rejected Sprout Pharmaceutical’s application for approval for the drug (again, because WHY NOT JUST GET DRUNK). From the NY Times article: “To be turned down twice by the F.D.A. is typically a death sentence for new drugs. But for flibanserin, the decision had the opposite effect: It galvanized a movement of women who believed the rejection reeked of sexism.”

The FDA eventually approved Addyi after a heavy resistance campaign, financed by Sprout Pharmaceuticals: “The F.D.A. approved flibanserin in 2015, writing later in the New England Journal of Medicine that while “the average treatment effects were small” (about 10 percent higher than placebo) “efficacy had been established.””

So what makes Addyi interesting is the discourse around it—the fact that prominent actress and influencers like Gwenyth Paltrow are writing and talking about it—and not that it’s particularly effective.

What’s interesting is that women care.

Women Taking Testosterone

Let’s move on to medical intervention that is more effective at increasing sex drive: Testosterone

The NY Times also covered this with:

* ‘I’m on Fire’: Testosterone Is Giving Women Back Their Sex Drive — and Then Some

* There is no F.D.A.-approved testosterone product for women. Insurance won’t cover it. Many doctors won’t prescribe it. It’s become a cultural phenomenon

* https://archive.is/KcwIA#selection-473.0-477.153

Great opening: “Spend enough time speaking to women who are taking testosterone — specifically, in very high doses — and you start to notice that they sound messianic. They’re often talking fast and intensely; they’re amped up; they’re describing what they clearly consider a miracle drug; and they have no intention of lowering their dose, despite the unknown risks or some problems with facial hair. After all, how can they worry about facial hair when they feel so alive? It’s nothing they can’t take care of with a quick waxing, which they now have the energy to do at the end of the day — right after they prepare a high-protein dinner for their family and before they put the finishing touches on their spreadsheets, close their laptops and light a few mood candles for the sex that they know will be great, maybe even better than the sex they had last night, even though they’re a day older.”

The article is about how Testosterone therapy has become a cultural phenomenon among women seeking to boost their sex drive and overall energy, despite there being no F.D.A.-approved testosterone products for women in the U.S., and significant barriers such as lack of insurance coverage and reluctance among many doctors to prescribe the hormone.

The article focuses on the lack of regulatory and medical support for female testosterone supplementation, despite the fact that it drops with age and can diminish sexual desire and motivation in women, which has pushed women toward expensive, non-traditional supplementation.

To be fair, as the article points out: “For men experiencing the effects of low testosterone — low libido, low energy, loss of muscle mass — the F.D.A. has approved more than 30 products since the 1950s; and yet, to this day, there is no F.D.A.-approved testosterone cream, patch, pill or shot for women, even though their testosterone levels fall far more precipitously than men’s as they age.”

Women who take testosterone — often at higher doses than medically recommended —

* report dramatic increases in energy, libido, and marital intimacy. Some describe near-miraculous transformations in their relationships and personal drive. However, these gains come with risks:

* Side effects can include facial hair, acne, hair loss, deepening of the voice, and, in some cases, enlarged clitoris or persistent irritation and anger.

It’s clear that testosterone does more to help sex drive than Addyi. From the article: “Both Medina and Lin are taking an amount of testosterone that’s brought their levels higher than what women produce naturally at any point in their lifetimes. The way they and many women on these high doses talk about their relationships sometimes has the ring of romantasy: fantastic tales of sexual rejuvenation and newfound intimacy. One woman in her 50s told me that after years of revulsion at so much as the thought of her husband’s breath, she now looked forward to having sex with him almost every night; even in the middle of sex, she said, she was thinking about the next time they could have sex. Another woman told me she’d had more orgasms in the past two years on testosterone than in the entirety of her previous life; a third said that after years of “wanting to rip someone’s face off” if her husband so much as touched her, she now actively pursued sex with him — if anything, she now worried, she wanted it more often than he did.”

It’s also clear that women’s advocacy of testosterone is going somewhat mainstream: “This season on “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” three of the show’s stars described their testosterone regimens: Gretchen Rossi was shown baring her bottom as her doctor implanted beneath her skin a tiny but powerful pellet packed with crystalline testosterone that would be released over the course of about four months. She commented afterward that she had recently reduced her levels. “I had to take mine down because I was humping everything,” she said. Rossi’s co-star Jennifer Pedranti commiserated: “You’ll just hump and hump and hump away.””

Gen X Women and Sex

It may be that this surge in interest in sex drive among women is largely relegated to older women, as the women cited in the two previous articles are in their 40s and 50s

This is somewhat backed up by a NY Times article on Gen X women and this broad subject:

* Why Gen X Women Are Having the Best Sex

* In an era plagued by sex negativity, only one generation seems immune: mine.

* https://archive.is/qxHc5

* The article explores how Gen X women (born 1965-1980) are experiencing a renaissance in their sex lives during middle age, often finding “better and more” sex than in their younger years.

* The author recounts her own post-divorce experiences at age 46, discovering that less inhibition, more self-love, and fewer social pressures improved her sex life

* The author also claims that society’s portrayal of middle-aged women’s sexuality has shifted: pop culture, books, and movies now celebrate mature women’s sexual autonomy, with examples like Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern starring in roles that embrace this narrative.

* Data suggests that sexual frequency among young adults has dropped steeply since around 2007, but Gen X in middle age has only experienced a minor decrease.

* The article also cites a newer academic approach called “critical gerontology,” that emphasizes how aging can bring newfound sexual confidence and fulfillment, challenging the view that aging is inherently a time of sexual decline.

Is This a Fight Worth Having?

From the NY Times Article on Cindy Eckert’s advocacy for the little pink pill: “For much of the last half-century, the fight for women’s sexual freedom has hinged largely on economic arguments. Giving women access to birth control, advocates’ reasoning went, would allow them to determine if and when they had children, empowering them to study, to work and to attain financial independence.Whether women actually desired or enjoyed the sex they were now free to have was, for a long time, a far more taboo question — one that even their doctors weren’t trained to ask.”

Wait—is medically inducing a high sex drive in women somehow feminist??

At any rate, we should think carefully about whether we want to medicate something to force it to happen.

Episode Transcript

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] So the NY Times also did an article on this. But like these husbands like, so like the wives are like both very argument, like suddenly very aggressive and like mean. But then like. Like ravenously hungry for them at night. So they’re like, I wouldn’t want that. I dunno if I’m happy or not happy. Like, I, she, like, I’m getting sex, but she’s mean, you know, like, what do you prefer?

She commented afterward. That she had recently reduced her levels. I had to take mine down because I was humping everything

Speaker 3: puer sentences them to death by S new. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I, I wouldn’t want that. I wouldn’t want, you don’t want me to be meaner, but I don’t, I don’t,

Speaker: What are you gay?

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I, I, I don’t want either.

Speaker 4: The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t wanna waste a bunch of time on sex.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. Simone’s gonna be running this one today, and she, this morning was like, oh, I have an episode that I’ve outlined [00:01:00] on women who are traching drugs to like make them horner and want like sex or arousal all the time.

And I heard this and I was like, wait, what the heck? You have to tell me more about this. And you know what she told me? She goes, no. I won’t tell you now. You have to wait until all of our fans hear about it. And so I’ve had to wait all effing day to hear this story for your sake so you can get my freaking reaction.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Fault. Well, because at the end, I, I want, I want everyone’s take. I want your take and I want every, like our, our like base campers take on. Whether this is a good thing, like whether the pursuit of high female sex drive is worth it, something that we should want for society, something that women should want to cultivate or that we should laud women for cultivating, or if it’s not and I think there’s an interesting debate to be had there, and I think that’s really the, the core [00:02:00] of this.

But I really wanna go in to actually like this movement of women that is. All about it because as much as we talk about everyone becoming increasingly sexless, there’s this subset of women who are all about sex me, about the great lengths to stoke sex drives when they have not, where

Malcolm Collins: what do they do, Simone?

So I can, so I never end up around this community of women. I need to know everything about where they are and how to find them.

Simone Collins: Well, there’s, there’s a lot of them. And, and, and they’re, they’re taking everything from have, have you heard of. Let’s see. Fil Eren, Phil Banin. Yeah. I’ve never

Malcolm Collins: heard of fil Eren.

Simone Collins: Well, they’re also taking that, they’re taking, that they’re taking testosterone. Of course there’s also the women who are just going off birth control to do this. But you, you can actually tell how much this is trending because it’s showing up in a bunch of New York Times articles and I’ll, I’ll refer to three of them, but I think even in other New York Times articles that we’ve covered, like the one on that woman.

Who’s like post-divorce and like having all these like liaisons with men and [00:03:00] complaining about how they weren’t pursuing her enough. You know, that there, there was within the subtext of that, this very sex positive, very sex voracious. Like, why aren’t men desiring me? I need to get more sex. Like, why is this not happening?

And there’s something there and I think we need to talk about it. But let’s start off with Viagra for women. Because the, the gateway article on this issue that got me really thinking about it is, is about what’s equivalent to, it’s, it’s being sort of marketed as the, as the Viagra For Woman. It’s a medication called Eren.

Okay. That it’s, it’s branded as, as Addie, and it’s marketed as, as the, the Little Pink Pill by a woman named Cindy Eckert, who herself became famous for basically integrating pink into every aspect of her life. Like her house is a full of pink and her hair is pink and her clothing is pink. Her closet is pink.

Everything is pink. And. There’s even a 2025 documentary, just, just like your childhood

Malcolm Collins: room, by the way. Yeah, Mrs. [00:04:00] Saying this derogatorily, you know? Yeah.

Simone Collins: I like, I liked pink, I liked feminine stuff. It’s

Malcolm Collins: hot pink too, by the way. Oh yeah.

Simone Collins: Like, like, Pepto Bimal pink. And that’s also very much her pink.

But there’s even this year a documentary coming out about this medication. I, I can send you a preview for it after this. Just you can take a look at it. I’ll link to it in our, in our show notes for,

Malcolm Collins: so it’s a pill that makes women horny and now there’s like sub communities that are forming around it.

Simone Collins: Well, so it’s a little more interesting than that actually. Cindy has been trying. Through her company Spart sprout Pharmaceuticals for 10 years to promote Agie. It, it, it’s a drug that she didn’t like, invent or discover. Someone actually told her about it and was like, Hey, you should try to make this a thing.

And then she threw her, her pharmaceutical company. Marketed it and finally got the FDA to approve it, and then sold it to a larger pharmaceutical company, which then bankrupt. And then she managed to get the company back, and now she’s pushing it. But [00:05:00] anyway, so this, so this, this, this, this medication that she.

Got turned onto by this random guy. Oh, and by the way, the New York Times article is titled, A Pill for Women’s Libido Meets a Cultural Moment. A decade ago, Cindy Eckard struggled to convince skeptics about a drug for pharmaceutical or for premenopausal women.

Lately, her business is booming and she,

Malcolm Collins: is it because she marketed it wrong, she should have marketed it to men. Honestly, probably. But first off, to be like, Hey, your wife isn’t hony enough. Your girlfriend’s not hony

Simone Collins: enough. Here’s a pill. Yeah. Well, fil Serrin is meant to treat what’s considered an actual condition and, and the condition is called hypoactive sexual desire disorder, A-K-A-H-S-D-D, which is, it’s a measurable condition.

There, there’s this really interesting, is it just being

Malcolm Collins: asexual? It sounds like being asexual,

Simone Collins: not. Exactly, actually. So there’s there’s, I there’s, I, I’ll link to this in, in, in my show notes. It’s a PubMed [00:06:00] article titled women with HSDD have different brain activity, like it’s, this is Measurable.

So this, this functional FMRI study compared brain activation and sexual response between 20 women without sexual dysfunction, and then 20 women who were diagnosed with this hypoactive sexual desire disorder and participants were exposed to erotic. Sports and relaxing video segments. Researchers measured subjective sexual arousal, physiological arousal using a vaginal.

Photo. Oh my god. Photo topple smog graph.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t know what, it’s a sparkle graph. They did it with a sparkle graph.

Simone Collins: It’s just, yes, it’s a photo topple smog graph. A VPP. Wait, you know what guys? Look it up. Whatever. And a brain activation in all three sessions. And they, they found that the differences in, in these two groups.

Suggested that women with HSDD may have altered encoding or retrieval of [00:07:00] arousing stimuli and possibly devote more cognitive attention to monitoring or evaluating their responses, which might interfere with normal sexual response. This is indicated by increased activation and specific brain areas tied to attention and evaluation.

So what Philander does is it slightly increases sexual desire and activity. And it slightly lowers distress and it causes drowsiness and lowers blood pressure, especially when combined with alcohol. So here’s my thing is why not just drink? Because it seems like what HSDD actually is, is just basically having higher inhibitory activity.

And keep in mind, Malcolm, what happens? What happens? When I actually drink enough to get tipsy. You get

Malcolm Collins: incredibly horny

Simone Collins: when you drink Uhhuh. Yeah. And I think this is not like uncommon, clearly it’s not uncommon in women, and this is exactly what the FMRI study found. It was like, oh, these women are too much in their heads.

Like that’s basically what it found is that they, they appear to be like the, the brain regions that are more [00:08:00] active in these women who are, are. Diagnosed with this condition?

Malcolm Collins: Well, actually, sorry, a side question for you.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Do you only get horny when you drink when you’re around me? Or did you used to get horny when you would drink even when you weren’t around me?

Simone Collins: I didn’t drink until I met you. Remember?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah. You never drank until you met me. Yeah. So

Simone Collins: I wouldn’t know. Have I gotten really drunk? Not around you. No. But yeah, I get super like, and, and I think, you know, when, when you take away the, the part of my brain that has me monitoring my own responses and, and, and controls my inhibitory control, like I’m super horny.

So part of me is like, okay, so Bin Sein is, is a drug. It has side effects, you know, it lowers your blood pressure, it causes drowsiness. Not that alcohol doesn’t, but like just buy a bottle of whiskey. Like good whiskey, like at least then you enjoy the whiskey. Like I don’t, I don’t get it. Like why are people getting this medication prescribed?

Malcolm Collins: But also

Simone Collins: the fda. ‘

Malcolm Collins: cause you combine it with Whiskey

Simone Collins: Indiana [00:09:00] and it’s a really good, the FDA actually rejected Sprout Pharmaceuticals application for approval for the drug. Again, because why not just get drunk? So I’m quoting from the New York Times article now the FDA approved Bin Saren in 2015, writing later in the New England Journal of Medicine.

That while the average treatment effects were small, about 10% higher than placebo efficacy has been established, so, okay. Like what would you say the effects of Simone drinking on

Malcolm Collins: drinking has different effects on different people is the problem, right? I guess, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like I could have been an angry drunk but Phil and Sarah, I think, I think it

Malcolm Collins: just reveals whoever you are underneath your, and this is why we, we’ve had episodes where I talk about this, where I’m like.

If you’re from a culture where drinking is normal I think people from cultures that we’re drinking is banned like Islamic and Mormon cultures. Yeah. Really struggle to understand why people from cultures where drinking is normal, don’t trust them.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. And,

Malcolm Collins: and the core reason is, is because we have no way to verify.

[00:10:00] What you are suppressing about your identity.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well, and cultures where drinking is more condoned. Even where drinking isn’t well tolerated. I would actually argue even, especially where drinking isn’t well tolerated. Think China. Think Japan. Yeah. Think South Korea. They have incredibly heavy drinking culture and ritualized business meetings.

I think particularly because, you know, like now this, it’s like a truth serum. Yeah. You know what they’re up to. It really is.

Malcolm Collins: It’s, it’s a true, you may not be able to get them to tell you the truth. Yeah. But you can get them to act like the truth.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. If there’s somebody that’s gonna get handsy with female employees, they will do it on that day.

Yeah. If there’s somebody who’s gonna get angry and start yelling at people, they will do it. If you push their buttons, then

Simone Collins: yeah. But, so basically. Gossip. But before the DA approved this, this fil eren add a for Sprout Pharmaceuticals in 2015, they rejected it twice. ‘cause it basically doesn’t make a difference 10% versus like 100% for me.

You know, like imagine if someone was like, oh, so you want someone to have a higher sex drive? Well here’s this [00:11:00] medication that’s like 10% more. You know, like, and you’d be like, I’m, I’m just gonna get her drunk. Like, it’s really easy. So yeah, like that’s, that is the, that is the thing. But what, what in, in the end Sprout Pharmaceuticals did was like basically pay this, this like campaign, like to get all these women to sort of complain about it and, and make a fuss.

And then finally the FDA relented. But so what really makes Addie as a drug or Phil Serrin as a drug interesting, is the discourse around it. And now the fact that actually it is, it, it is, it does seem to now be organically trending. Prominent actresses are talking about it in podcasts. Gwyneth Paltrow wrote about it.

So I think that’s what’s interesting. What’s interesting isn’t the drug itself, but that women care, that women want to take a medication. That will improve their sex drive. But let’s talk about a medication that actually works in improving women’s sex lives.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, this is a, a fancy direction. What is this

Simone Collins: medication?

Malcolm Collins: And I, and [00:12:00] Gwyn is pal. I think Gwyn Is Paltrow like a billion years old at this point? No, she’s, I think she’s

Simone Collins: in her fifties. Yeah. No, she’s 52 years old. I actually looked it up. I was like. She’s 52 years old, but yeah. No, this is, yeah, she’s older, but, okay. So now, and I’ll give you a hint about the drug that actually works and is very effective, by the way.

People we know and who respect it. And also like people in, in the rationalist community, in, in addition are using this as, as women. Is it microdosing? Some people are microdosing, some people are not microdosing going on. Is it ketamine? Is it ketamine? No, it’s not Ketamine. His unfortunate side effects.

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I don’t know. Oh, is it the, is it the drug that’s for like weight loss?

Simone Collins: No. Nope. It’s not, it’s not semaglutide.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t know. I dunno. It’s

Simone Collins: testosterone. Come on, obviously. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: testosterone. That’s

Simone Collins: obviously, I should

Malcolm Collins: have you you shouldn’t have framed it to me like that. You should’ve been like, you understand sexuality, what hormone tours women on, and I would [00:13:00] immediately be like, oh yes, women are hor when they’re on more testosterone.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So the NY Times also did an article on this. Titled I’m on Fire. Testosterone is giving women back their sex drive and then some subtitled. There is no FDA approved testosterone products for women. Insurance won’t cover it, many doctors won’t prescribe it. It’s become a cultural phenomenon. It has a great opening, so I just have to go ahead and read it.

Spend enough time speaking to women who are taking testosterone specifically in very high doses, and you start to notice that they sound messianic. They’re often taking. Sorry. Hold on. Drink up. Okay, there we go. They sound messianic. They sound messianic. They’re often talking fast and intensely.

They’re amped up. They’re describing what they clearly consider a miracle drug, and they have no intention of lowering their dose despite the unknown risks or some problems with facial hair. After all, how can they worry about facial hair when they feel so alive? It’s nothing they can’t take care of with a [00:14:00] quick waxing, which they now have energy to do at the end of the day.

Right after they prepare a high protein dinner for the family and before they put the finishing touches on their spreadsheets, close their laptops and light a few mood candles for the sex that they know will be great. Then even better than the sex they had the last night, and though they’re day older.

So, I just love that opening. That’s a,

Malcolm Collins: that’s an intense, this is somebody who really likes the drug that they’re on. Well,

Simone Collins: I mean, this is the, I dunno if the journalist is on it. She just interviewed a lot of women who are messianic about it. Oh, the article.

Malcolm Collins: This is,

Simone Collins: he

Malcolm Collins: reminds me of a, a, a video that is so, okay.

So one of the types of videos that I like watching are, music, and then in the foreground of the music, they will have like anime characters, like doing like a, a pose or something like that. Oh, like bouncing Yeah. Or something, right? Yeah. Our, our kids

Simone Collins: love it, which is a little difficult because if you saw exactly what these characters looked like.[00:15:00]

Malcolm Collins: One of, one of, one of the ones that is, that is a fun one, is this a woman who’s like this like Jim Bro girl. And there’s a tweet next to it that says, women who are mildly muscular think they are gods. And then the woman is saying, know your place. Which I, I, I find funny you know, sort of like a play on, on whatever that fetish is

So I looked this up to add it and apparently it’s literally just a know your meme page. Mildly muscular women think they’re Gods know your place. , And then there’s a bunch of people who have done rifts on this.

which now we know the Trump assassin had.

Yeah. I’m, I’m

Simone Collins: now discovering that this is a thing which is just great. I mean, I guess there, there had to be a reason for the female bodybuilder competitions. And that’s they found their niche actually. That’s, that is an underrated way for post wall women. To get an advantage in sexual markets.

I, we should tell more of our 30 something women looking for her husband. I

Malcolm Collins: love that. She, she, she says it’s a high protein dinner. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I didn’t think about [00:16:00] that. I’m like, these women are like doing, I’d actually be very interested to see how taking testosterone, changes a woman’s arousal patterns, not in terms of the volume of the arousal patterns, but in terms of the nature.

Does it make them more dominant, like more dominant cited, aroused, or does it It does. It does, yeah. Yeah. It also makes it more

Simone Collins: argumentative and aggressive. So, but I’ll get into that. But what’s, what’s bigger, of course, this is the New York Times, so they have to take a whole, so Social Justice Warrior and like Concern trolley angle to it, the articles about how testosterone therapy has become a cultural phenomenon among women seeking to boost their sex drive, but also their overall energy.

But like the whole angle is despite there being no FDA approved testosterone products for women in the US and the significant barriers such as like the lack of, of insurance coverage and the reluctance amongst many doctors hormones, why

Malcolm Collins: do the insurance coverage for something that’s just meant to make them horny and, and be like an amphetamine?

Simone Collins: Well, so the, [00:17:00] the thing is, and here’s a quote from the article, for men experiencing the effects of low testosterone, low libido, low energy loss of muscle mass, the FDA has approved more than 30 products since the 1950s, and yet to this day, there’s no FDA approved testosterone cream patch, pill or shot for women, even though their testosterone levels fall far more precipitously than men’s as they age.

So the, the, the article makes a fair point, Malcolm, that like.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Okay. I buy that. So are you gonna start using testosterone? Is that the idea now? Well,

Simone Collins: so I mean, there

Malcolm Collins: there’re

Simone Collins: benefits and drawbacks. So women who take testosterone report dramatic increases in energy, libido, and marital intimacy. Some describe the near miraculous transformations in their relationships and personal drive, but the gains do come with risks, and the side effects include facial hair and acne and hair loss.

Deepening of the voice, which I, the deepening of the voice sounds fine, but in some cases enlarged clitoris and persistent irritation and [00:18:00] anger. And like some of the case, like the, the, the, like women quoted in the articles, they’re, their kids are like. Mom, you’re like a teenage boy. Like you’re being mean, like just constantly arguing and getting really angry all the time.

Oh God.

Malcolm Collins: I can’t imagine. That sounds nightmarish.

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah, like I feel like these husbands must feel so confused. In fact, like one of the women let’s see if there’s a good here. I’ll, I’ll read. It’s, it’s clear that testosterone does more than just like, it, it does more than Addie. At least it does more than Phil, Phil and Sarah.

So here’s another quote from the article that sort of illustrates us more. Both Medina and Lynn, these are people that she quoted earlier, are taking an amount of testosterone that’s brought their levels higher than what women produce naturally at any point in their lifetimes. The way they, and many women on these high doses talk about their relationships sometimes has the ring of romantic fantastic tales of sexual rejuvenation and newfound intimacy.

One woman in her fifties told me after years of revulsion, at so much as the thought of her husband’s breath, she now looked forward to having sex with [00:19:00] him about every night. Even in the middle of sex, she said she was thinking about the next time they could have sex. Another woman told me she had more orgasms in the past two years on testosterone than in the entirety of her previous life.

A third said that after years of wanting to rip someone’s face off, if her husband so much has touched her, she now actively pursued sex with him. If anything, she not worried. She wanted it more often than he did. So can you just imagine these confused husbands who’s like wives cool to them? What’s

Malcolm Collins: funny to me is how much they hated their husbands before this.

I know. And like, oh

Simone Collins: my

Malcolm Collins: dis

Simone Collins: disgust. But like these husbands like, so like the wives are like both very argument, like suddenly very aggressive and like mean. But then like. Like ravenously hungry for them at night. So they’re like, I wouldn’t want that. I dunno if I’m happy or not happy. Like, I, she, like, I’m getting sex, but she’s mean, you know, like, what do you prefer?

It’s, it’s, it’s so

Malcolm Collins: confusing.

Speaker 3: puer sentences them to death [00:20:00] by S new. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I, I wouldn’t want that. I wouldn’t want, you don’t want me to be meaner, but I don’t, I don’t,

Speaker: What are you gay?

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I, I, I don’t want either.

Speaker 4: The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t wanna waste a bunch of time on sex. First of all,

Simone Collins: no. We were having a conversation about this the other night where we were like, I mean, so the time that we would have sex is, is time that we, if we were to have sex more than we do already, is, is time we would not be spending with our kids, which we really, really value.

Or sleeping, which we’re already basically not doing. So like what are we willing to sacrifice? Like our quality of life would degrade significantly for sex. We have to

Malcolm Collins: one hour of alone time a day for like video games or whatever. Yeah. Right. Like, like, I don’t know, man. Like, I don’t know. I don’t know

Simone Collins: where like what are these people doing with their

Malcolm Collins: lives?

They’re like, we record your episodes. It’s your fault fans. Damn you. Damn. You fault. Nobody else does an episode a day. I know. Even [00:21:00] on weekends now, because, well, Asal

Simone Collins: does tons of like streamers. You know, I, I

Malcolm Collins: suppose you’re

Simone Collins: right, but doesn’t have other jobs. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, they, yeah, we, we also have jobs and we’re not streamers.

But anyway, so then there’s this other New York Times article on Gen Z Women in Sex, which has me thinking maybe this is like an older woman thing. It may be the, just like the interest in sex drive among, among women is mostly. Like dedicated to older women because most of the women like quoted in these articles are in their forties and fifties.

And it’s somewhat backed up by this article titled Why Gen Z Women Are Having The Best Sex in An Era Planked by Sex Negativity. Only One Generation Seems Immune Mine, and it’s by this, this, this Gen X woman who, who talks about, and this, for those who are not familiar with Gen X is, is it’s like, it’s the generation that’s one.

One rung older than Malcolm’s and mine. So they’re like in their forties and above. Now they’re born at 1965 to 1980 and they’re apparently just [00:22:00] getting this renaissance in their sex lives. The author recounts her own experiences in this article, and she claims that society’s portrayal of middle-aged women and, and their sexuality has really shifted that pop culture and books and movies now celebrate mature women’s sexual autonomy, and I think this is true, like with the beginning of Eat, pray, love.

You sort of had this like middle-aged women sexual renaissance and like it, it’s happening a little bit less with younger women. But also data suggests that sexual frequency. No, it’s the same women.

Malcolm Collins: It’s the same women. It’s, it’s the eat, pray, love women. Just one generation older now. Yeah. Yeah. They’re just

Simone Collins: aging.

Yeah. It’s like, it’s one generation. But yeah, so data, there’s a bunch

Malcolm Collins: of sluts in a perpetual finding themselves Renaissance.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Sexual frequency among young adults has dropped steeply since around 2007. But Gen X in middle age has only experienced a minor decrease. So like, yeah, I think you’re right.

It’s just one generation. But also I just have to point out, the article points out this this, this new academic approach called [00:23:00] Critical Gerontology that emphasizes how aging can bring newfound sexual confidence in fulfillment, challenging a view that aging is inherently a time of sexual decline.

Why do we need to do this? But anyway, so there’s this one quote that from the New York Times article on Cindy Eckert’s effort to get. To make Addie happen to make Phil and Sarah happen when like, just f*****g, just drink. Okay. But like it, I think this is really the point of discourse that I wanna kick off it.

The author writes, for much of that last half century, the fight for women’s sexual freedom has hinged mostly on economic arguments, giving women access to birth control advocates reasoning went. Would allow them to determine if and when they had children, empowering them to study, to work and attain financial independence.

Whether women actually desired or enjoyed the sex they were now free to have was for a long time, a far more taboo [00:24:00] question, one that even their doctors weren’t trained to ask, but like, weren’t, your doctor shouldn’t. Well, is is medically inducing a high sex drive when you don’t? Have one otherwise, like really Well, could it make feminist

Malcolm Collins: sterile?

I, I wonder are you messing with your

Simone Collins: I don’t, yeah, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know how testosterone would, would mess with. Your fertility. And that was actually like, when I was thinking about it, I was like, oh, should I experiment with testosterone? Yes, it can.

Malcolm Collins: It can. It suppresses ovulation.

Simone Collins: Well, that I, I have an, I mean, given how hormonally messed up I am, like, that doesn’t matter.

I don’t, it wouldn’t be relevant to

Malcolm Collins: you because you,

Simone Collins: but like I was also like, yeah, but like also if I’m trying to get pregnant, you know, again, multiple times, like I don’t really wanna mess with my hormonal cycles right now because it leads

Malcolm Collins: to long term changes to ovaries.

Simone Collins: Well, again, like I don’t need my ovaries as much anymore ‘cause we’ve done all the IVF cycles that we plan on doing, but I also just don’t wanna mess with [00:25:00] like my hormonal levels as we go into more frozen and burger transfers.

‘cause you know, I just, I don’t wanna like anything that messes things up. Like things have worked so far and I’m like, let’s just. I, I’m on my medications. I’m on, get, get done,

Malcolm Collins: get those 12, 13 kids.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And then, then maybe I’ll experiment with testosterone and instead live vicariously through our friends who are experimenting with it.

But yeah, I mean, I’m, I’m just like one, like I think that trying to medicate a sex drive where there isn’t, like, this reminds me a lot actually of Brave New World, which as you know, I love Aldis. Huxley’s Brave New World presents this dystopia in which everyone is polyamorous. They have this saying that you just kind of repeat, everyone belongs to everyone else.

And if anyone ever gets too monogamous or like they actually don’t have enough sex, you’re kind of supposed to like, like take Soma, which is this drug that you like. It’s, it seems kind of like. I don’t know. Maybe like literally just living in Silicon Valley, [00:26:00] like Xanax or something. Like, like you take a drug and like you, you go sleep with more people, but you’re, you’re kind of like forcing yourself into this.

And it seems kind of dystopian to me that like you’re trying to create a desire where there isn’t a desire. And I also will fully admit though that things like hormonal birth control can really suppress sex drive in women. That our lifestyles as it is, could be suppressing sex drive that our, our artificial work schedules and offices and all these things, and the time we spend in front of screens could, could be suppressing sex drive and that then, you know, well then I guess we’ll just medicate it back into our lives.

This

Malcolm Collins: is such a progressive thing that like your life is about your sex drive. Like it’s weird. Yeah. That’s the other thing. Yeah. Like this is like, it’s, well, where I think it gets. Unfortunately injected into conservative culture. Uhhuh is from a few areas. One is a lot of the new right movement is downstream of the men’s rights movement.

Mm-hmm. And, and or the really, the red pill movement, well used the euphemism of the men’s rights movement in the [00:27:00] red pill movement in the early days. You know, it was a, my generation when we were at like. You know, chopped up on testosterone, looking for sex all the time. And so status was shown and gained was in the community by the number of

Simone Collins: people you slept with.

Sleeping

Malcolm Collins: with people and sleeping with attractive people. And sleeping with like status people. Yeah. And it caused a lot of the community to begin to see. Sexual conquest, or whatever you wanna call it, as a sign

Simone Collins: of success, like a quantifiable

Malcolm Collins: sign of success. You’re not, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re conquering a dumpster.

Yay. Yeah. You came back for, with spoils and it’s, you know, use condoms on a pizza. There’s another word I’m making it, it’s not a, I’m trying to say it’s not a necessarily a good way to live life. But, that still holds within the right-leaning ecosystem to a bit Yeah. Where people attempt to flex to each other through the amount of sex they’re having, even though, oh, do you

Simone Collins: think so do you think women are, are adopting [00:28:00] that in an attempt to succeed by masculine standards?

No, that’s

Malcolm Collins: not the point I’m making. I think that where this is coming from women is downstream of the urban monoculture. But what I’m saying is, is that generally, or historically speaking, conservative cultural groups or healthy religious, cultural groups understood that life isn’t about arousal maxing.

Right. And that arousal just is not that important to daily life. Like.

Simone Collins: Well, what’s also interesting though, is historically. When it came to arousal, women were seen as like the crazy horny sexual predators. Like, gotta watch out for them. You know, they’re gonna, no,

Malcolm Collins: no, no. It’s like historically, if you were like, I prefer playing with my kids, like, you know, an hour playing with my kids to an hour having sex.

Yeah. They’d be like, oh, well,

Simone Collins: especially in the Victor area,

Malcolm Collins: you’d just see this. Most people would be like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Like that, that seems like a a, I mean, obviously you need to have enough sex to have more kids, but like, you know, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t like engage in it in some sort of big recreational [00:29:00] romp unless you were like my secret life or something like that.

Which is an interesting book, by the way, from the Victorian period about a guy who just slept around a ton. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but the point being is that you know, historically these conservative traditions, they understood like, hey don’t dedicate your life to this stuff. You know, those searches for pleasure, such as for arousal.

But then the second area it got in, and we have a whole video on this, which is I, I think it was girl defined, ruined an entire generation of women which is obviously take off. Oh yeah. Entire generation of women. And the point that we make in that is that. The way that some evangelical and.

Abstinence until marriage cultural groups reacted to the urban monoculture, attempting to lure people away by saying, come join us and you can have sex. You know all you want, and you can do whatever you want. That affirms you. Mm-hmm. And they were like, no, no, no, no. Stay with us because actually sex is better if you wait until marriage and sex be so

Simone Collins: amazing.

Yeah. And

Malcolm Collins: they, they, they, they almost treated marriage like it’s some like super sex kink [00:30:00] thing. Yeah. They

Simone Collins: hyped it up way too much. And then all these people got married and were super disappointed. Yeah. They’re like, well. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Where it’s actually much more powerful to just be like, that sex is not bad on sex.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: It’s the, it’s not the, it’s not the point. I mean, I don’t know. The way I was thinking about it when I was reading these is I was like, well, yeah, but do I, do I respect men for taking Viagra? Do I respect men for taking testosterone supplementation to become more no. I always think it’s kind of lame.

It’s kind of gross. And also like, as you know, I’ve only been sent. One dick pic in my entire life, it was of a, a botched infected penile implant, and it is one of the most traumatic things that was sent to me on a Christmas day, and I can’t ever unsee it. Don’t ever do that.

Malcolm Collins: Think that because I didn’t open the message because of you being like, you’re so

Simone Collins: freaking lucky.

Yeah. This was, by the way, sent in a group chat. That Malcolm was also in, he did not see it [00:31:00] because I think he heard my, I don’t know, vomiting in the other room. Oh my God. Yeah. Don’t do like, yeah. So like whenever I think of like men’s pursuit of this and I feel like men have more of a societal. Like, I mean, so men, it’s not like men are expected to have these really high sex drives, right?

So I can understand why men are more likely to have a hangup. I still think it’s pathetic ‘cause it’s just you trying to meet a stupid societal expectation. I think it’s kind of like the equivalent of like women being expected to look young, you know, like, and getting plastic surgery as a result. But for women getting it, yeah, there’s this school bus, I need to go out and get ‘em.

Our, our, our sense.

Malcolm Collins: Hey, you said there were like communities that are doing this. Can you tell me about those? Oh, what do you mean? Like that we know? No, no. Are there like subcultures around this? Are there.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of like, but it’s mostly like whisper networks of women. And it, what happens is this is happening largely within like [00:32:00] shared social networks of women.

One woman will start taking testosterone and then another will. Like, for example, in the New York Times article about women taking testosterone. Here’s another quote from it. This season of the Real Housewives of Orange County, three of the show stars described their testosterone regimens. Gretchen Rossi was shown bearing her bottom as her doctor implanted beneath her skin, A tiny but powerful pellet packed with crystalline testosterone that would be released over the course of about four months.

She commented afterward. That she had recently reduced her levels. I had to take mine down because I was humping everything she said. Rossi’s, CoStar, Jennifer ante, , commiserated. You’ll just hump and hump and hump away. So what’s happening is within like social networks of women. Like one will start taking testosterone and rave about it and then more in war will.

And I think part of it’s the vitalism of it. And so it’s not necessarily about social [00:33:00] conformity. It’s just like, oh my God, I feel so alive. I. Well, you’ve

Malcolm Collins: got nothing else in your life if you don’t have kids or anything like that, you know? Yeah. Like just the

Simone Collins: hedonism and novelty of all the sex I think is really fun.

It’s, it’s kind of like a, like imagine if you could rediscover that revelation that you can, you can bang things as like a teenage boy. I think women discovering that for the first time, I think there’s a novelty factor that probably wears off, but like in the beginning it’s really exciting. Yeah. That, that makes sense.

Especially as a perimenopausal or many menopausal woman who’s experiencing a lot of fatigue and exhaustion to have that extra energy. Plus I mean, like, you know, the, the testosterone’s gonna lead to more lean muscle development and everything. It’s gonna help with weight loss. So like as you’re getting more dumpy and more tired and your sex drive is lower, to suddenly have a reversal of that, even if you’re growing more facial hair, like by that point, if you’re this type of woman who cares about all those things, you’re also the type of woman who already is whack.

Seeing and already is doing all the things, they’re gonna counteract most of the negative side effects. Plus you’re [00:34:00] probably also abrasive as it is, so like being even more aggressive and abrasive probably isn’t gonna be that disjoint in your life. Yeah. So, yeah, I just I think my take is, this is all hedonic nonsense and beside the point sex drives are unmoored from productive reproduction.

For example, so like. I, I don’t think that, I don’t think that people are gonna have the types of families they want or need just because they can’t control themselves around each other because they’re like, oh my God, I have to bang you. I think that people have the types of families that they want and need because they’re like, I think we’re ready.

Like, let’s start our family. You know, let’s be conscious about this, and then they do it. So yeah, I, I don’t think this is, I think this is interesting. But I, I don’t think it should be lauded and so Well, and it

Malcolm Collins: suppresses fertility, so I don’t think you’re gonna be having more kids just ‘cause you’re banging more on this.

Simone Collins: No,

Malcolm Collins: definitely not. All right, well thank you. I love you. I’ll send you Bcha recipes Bach [00:35:00] Choy.

Simone Collins: I love you. . You did great coverage. Yeah, it was better than, no,

Malcolm Collins: it’s wild. It’s wild that this was covered up and that like we have an actively hostile FBI in deep state and they’re like, the deep state isn’t real. And I was like well they did, you know, try to manipulate an election by hiding. There’s

Simone Collins: so many crazy

Malcolm Collins: stories.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So I, yeah, I just, wow. But also like every country does this and it’s all crazy. So anyway. Alright, let’s get into. My crazy, my crazy story.

Malcolm Collins: You

Simone Collins: ready?

Malcolm Collins: I, do you mind if I start this one? Sure, go ahead. All right.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe