London - While men may now be able to perform at the popping of a pill, women are not quite on the same page.
The female of the species is more lukewarm about sex than the male. Around a third of pre-menopausal women and half of older women report sexual problems.
And a recent British Medical Journal study found more than a third of 5 000 women questioned had lost interest altogether.
No surprise, then, that the race is on to develop the female equivalent of that little blue pill, a magic wand that will transform us all into willing participants in the bedroom.
Enticing as this idea may seem, Viagra simply provides a mechanical solution to an age-related problem. In other words, men still want to have sex, it’s simply that their bodies can’t.
With women, it’s different. We can almost always manage the physical side of things. It’s re-igniting lost desire that is so much harder.
There are many theories as to what causes sex to fall so far down the list of a woman’s priorities that it eventually plunges into the abyss.
Stress, antidepressants, young children, teenagers, caring for older parents, perimenopause, menopause, vitamin deficiency - you name it, someone will have come up with it.
But if you ask me, the answer is very simple: men.
READ: When the cause of a sexless relationship is the man
Specifically, modern man and his increasing emasculation. Men are so hamstrung by complex notions of equality, so confused about what is and is not acceptable, that they have begun to lose that raw, masculine edge. And that is a big part of what turns women on.
It’s one thing to demand equality in the boardroom; things are very different in the bedroom.
Sex is a fundamentally feral activity, a product of flesh and hormones engineered by nature in order to encourage the reproduction of the species. And nature is clever. Our bodies are designed to want things our feminist minds don’t necessarily feel comfortable with. Such as men who look like they might be able to protect our children from passing predators; or men who can split logs; or, men who, you know, just exude a certain amount of old-fashioned male confidence.
Such men are becoming increasingly unacceptable in this #MeToo world of ours. So vehement is the backlash against anything resembling traditional masculinity, it’s hard to see a future for them.
While this may make for a more egalitarian society, it doesn’t make for much fun in the bedroom.
That is not to say that No does not mean No. There are no excuses for sexual assault. But we are creating a generation of downtrodden men who can’t even tell a woman she looks nice without risking being branded a pervert.