The Feminine Mystique?

Ok, here's a story that was the second most emailed article at the New York Times website for most of Monday.  Oddly, a story about hiking the Grand Canyon had even more appeal than this one, and this morning, a story about kindergartners in forests is number one.  But, in keeping with Holly's racy tendencies, we could hardly pass up this also-ran (its place in the queue suggesting that New Yorkers crave nature more than they crave sex?).  Called "Women Who Want to Want", the story is about curing an affliction that is apparently common among women, to judge by interest in this article -- lack of sexual desire.  It's also about whether that's a disease or not -- pharmaceutical companies seem to be training us to think it is in case they come up with a female form of Viagra, so we'll all get in line to buy it when they do, but that's not news (in fact, the Times also ran a story saying that there's already a product that will do the trick, but that's beyond our scope today, and anyway, no brand names here).

All that is interesting enough, sociologically and so on, but here's what really interests us about the article, given all our posts on how to determine cause-and-effect, and evidence-based medicine etc.  Bear with us as we quote at length, just so you get the full effect.

Various pharmaceutical companies, at various times, have pursued testosterone as a remedy for women’s lack of desire, and some doctors prescribe it for the condition — Laura Berman, Oprah's anointed sex expert, avidly promotes this method — though the Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved this use. Brotto and Basson [sexologists] are about to publish research demonstrating that low levels of testosterone in women do not correspond with low libido. Yet there is a paradox. Brotto explained that giving extra testosterone to women with desire problems can, it appears, spike sexual interest. For reasons unknown, the administered hormone has a unique effect. But there’s a further complication. In studies, women given a placebo report a similar result, not quite as marked but definitely not insignificant either. To add to the intrigue, the women using a placebo often report testosterone’s unwanted side effects: facial hair; acne. Speaking about all this, Brotto smiled in bewilderment — and in something close to awe at the inscrutability of the human mind, the organ that is the locus of desire.

Did you get that??! Giving women a placebo instead of testosterone can cause the same unwanted side effects, facial hair and acne, as giving them the hormone itself! That is so beautiful, and says more in one sentence than anything we've come up with yet about the difficulty of determining causation.