XX Factor: the blog

The Many Ways the Pill Could Do You Wrong

If the blood clots and stroke risks don’t scare you off the pill, maybe this will: Women taking oral contraceptives are less attractive to the opposite sex and less likely to pick a good mate, according to a roundup of studies on the pill, published in this month's Trends in Ecology and Evolution, that Sarah Kliff at Newsweek reported on today.

When a woman is ovulating, her hormonal fluctuations affect her “facial appearance, her vocal pitch, even body odor,” Kliff writes. “And during ovulation, those changes increase a woman's attractiveness because they indicate fertility.” Hardly as dramatic as the potential side effect that terrified many of my friends when we started going on the pill: rapid weight gain. But apparently men—who, so the legend goes, don’t even notice a new outfit or restyled hair (or is that just my dad?)—pick up on these shifts, as shown in a study in the roundup that found that lap dancers make higher tips when they’re ovulating.

The pill’s influence on scent goes both ways: Women on the pill react differently to men’s scents, too—in a way that might be leading us toward the wrong guys. One study in this month’s report found that women on the pill are more likely to be attracted the smell of genetically similar guys. (More impressive than the study’s findings, perhaps, is that the researchers “collected body odor from volunteers and put it in jars for the ladies to smell.” Sucks to be that research assistant.) That means that pill-popping women may be selecting partners counter to the credo that the species is stronger if we mate with people who are genetically dissimilar (put in simpler terms, “opposites attract”).

I imagine that the more tangible threats of weight gain, loss of libido, and mood swings will remain the only pill side effects that actually keep people away. Still, these studies are going to stick with me for a while, if only for the imagery of menstruating lap dancers and smells in jars.

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Tags: birth control, health, Science

Samantha Henig is the associate editor of Double X, and can be reached at samantha.henig@doublex.com.

Comments

The Pill

By: Xando | Fri, 10/09/2009 - 16:28

I've always been extremely suspect of the pill. A person constantly fiddling with their hormone balance just doesn't strike me as a good idea. For the purpose of birth control, it seems particularly silly.

Unless you're in a committed relationship, you should be using condoms for disease prevention if nothing else.

And, frankly, even in a committed relationship, I view condoms as a far superior choice to the pill. Yes, they're a bit clunky. But most of the time they're a lot less clunky than removing the woman's clothes. Yes, they reduce sensation. But how is that a drawback, since they reduce the man's sensation rather than the woman's. Last time I checked, the man being able to achieve orgasm wasn't a great worry for couples.

Honestly

By: Dubious | Thu, 10/08/2009 - 14:10

I think that the issues as stated are a bit unrealistic. The references to the pill causing you to be less attractive because you're not ovulating seems like something between a Catch-22 and a health food advertisement- the latter based on an article a long while back that pointed out how various products tout numbers like a 40% decrease in your chance of contracting some potentially lethal disease, when the original chance is only something akin to 1.5%. The Catch-22 part comes in with the fact that ovulating might make you more attractive, but if you're trying to attract a guy then this is likely the point in time where you're most interested in being on birth control to start with. By the time you're at the point where you're willing to trust the guy enough or the potential for a pregnancy would be a happy accident, you shouldn't need to worry about being slightly more attractive to him.

As for the other study, as pointed out, 100 cases does not make a statistically significant sample size. Further, the declaration by the researchers that you can't know what this means- only to then have those same researchers proceed to make big extrapolations about what it means- suggests that the best thing to do is to ignore this as little more than a curiosity that might justify a follow-up study on a much larger scale. I'd also be interested to know how they determine genetic similarity, and just what constitutes similar. Would two people with traditional features from a given area (such as the iconic Irish red hair and green eyes) count?

i couldn't agree more. my

By: juliesunday | Wed, 10/07/2009 - 18:04

i couldn't agree more. my personal experiences with the pill have ranged from bad to worse (mood swings, vag infections, zero libido, breast hate, etc.) and i got a paragard 4 years ago and haven't regretted it for a second. i just don't understand how everyone could agree that using hormones for a long period of time could be totally benign for your body.

Ah, the joys of poor science writing

By: Kit-Kat | Wed, 10/07/2009 - 14:28

So, in a study of 100 college-aged women, more women on the pill liked the smell of genetically similar guys. Which they sniffed in a jar. Even the scientists who conducted the study admit that they have no idea what the real-world implications of that are. So let the totally unsupported extrapolation begin!

And don't forget....

By: ZoeCat | Wed, 10/07/2009 - 14:20

The pill screws with your libido. I noticed a HUGE drop-off, and it hasn't recovered.