New Research Says Coming Off The Pill Makes You Fancy Your Boyfriend Less

So apparently the pill makes us fancy guys less - which is worrying.

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by Stevie Martin |
Published on

New Pill-related survey has found that being on the Pill is basically like beer goggles and, if you come off it, you'll start fancying your boyfriend less. Which is worrying, but not entirely accurate.

First, the science. After testing newly married women who were taking hormonal contraceptives when they met their husbands, scientists found that those women see the LOTLs (Love Of Their Lives) differently once they've come off the Pill – and not in a good way. With men whose faces didn't confirm to the 'classically hot' stereotype, women became less happy with their relationship. However, with guys who were 'classically hot,' women found they were satisfied. 'The fact that wives' hormonal contraceptive use was linked to their marital satisfaction suggests that hormonal contraceptives may have far-reaching implications, both beneficial and harmful,' Michelle Russell, a psychologist at Florida State University told The Guardian.

Dr Craig Roberts, who led a study on emotional side-effects of the Pill, had this to add: ‘Results show some positive and negative consequences of using the Pill when a woman meets her partner – choosing a non-hormonal barrier method of contraception for a few months before getting married might be one way for a woman to reassure herself that she’s still attracted to her partner.’ Which, to be honest, sounds like there's no real hard evidence either way.

READ MORE: Ask An Adult - Is It Safe To Be On The Pill Throughout My 20s?

And, of course, there are some immediate problems with this new survey, before you start panicking that having a Pill break will make your boyf morph into some sort of pond creature. Firstly, the attractiveness of a man's face isn't an exact art – no matter how well trained the 'observers' were who studied them – which means the experiment that the study is based on is ultimately flawed.

Also, anecdotal evidence from people we spoke to says pretty much the opposite – that they themselves felt more attractive, which boosted their sex drive. 'It was the opposite for me, my sex drive went up loads because I felt so much better,' says one Debrief reader. Another tells how she 'lost three quarters of a stone so I felt way more sexually attractive', which is the crux of shagging: the better you feel, the more sexy you feel, the more you have sex. The side effects of pumping hormones around our bodies have been much debated, and while it'd be great to get an answer as to exactly how it affects us – this isn't it yet.

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Follow Stevie on Twitter: @5tevieM

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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