Birth control is complicated. There are positives and negatives to just about every option you might choose to use. Sometimes the side effects and risks are okay. Other times, they are actively life threatening. (I wrote a book on them, if you need help navigating the landscape and mitigating your problems!)
This is largely because hormonal varieties of birth control mess with natural hormone production. I always knew that. I always knew that hormones play a role in having healthy skin, healthy digestion, healthy metabolism, healthy bones, and a healthy brain… but I didn’t know this one crazy fact I stumbled upon in an article on academia.edu the other day.
Seriously I had no idea, and I am thanking my lucky stars I’ve never been on hormonal birth control.
This is what you need to know first:
The science of pheromones
What’s a pheromone? “Pheromone” is a word people sometimes use to describe the mysterious desiring effect a person has on us. In the magical way a lot of people use the idea, of course pheromones are BS.
But pheremones are also very real from a particular scientific standpoint. When men smell women’s clothing, they are the most attracted to the scents of women who are ovulating. When women ovulate, they are more attuned to their noses. During ovulation, women always smell men more acutely – so, with more desire, and also more accurately, more on which in a moment – than at other times of the month.
Yet most importantly – both men and women prefer the scents of partners who have immune systems that are compatible with theirs. There is a particular aspect of your immune system that is conveyed to others subconsciously via your smell.
When people mate, it’s best to have immune systems that are different, because this means your offspring will have all the more robust immune systems. So you will very often experience a magnetic sort of romantic pull towards human beings whose immune systems are good matches for yours.
Cool!
But this is where I start to get worried
There is evidence that these scent-based capabilities are much diminished in women who use hormonal birth control. The primary ability that declines is the ability to smell “male” cues like male hormone levels.
Can you say YIKES. This means your ability to experience the mysterious “I want you I need you” feeling when you smell a man is significantly depleted on birth control.
That sounds like the worst to me. Yet it may in fact be worse.
THIS is where I am definitely worried
It appears as though birth control not only diminishes the ability to smell and desire, but confuses it.
Twelve heterosexual college students in this small study kissed each other (one of the primary “objectives” of kissing is to actually put you in prime position to get a good whiff of your partner). The students were blindfolded, both male and female. Assistants had to – literally – guide their lips together for the kiss. No speaking occurred, and no body parts were allowed to touch at all save for the lips.
After each kiss, the women were asked to rate how eager they’d be to kiss each man again as well as how attractive she guessed he was. This procedure was repeated with several of the men, which gave the researchers a few dozen data points. At the end of the study, the women were shown photographs of the men, and they rated them on attractiveness based on the photographs.
THIS IS WHAT’S SO FASCINATING –
For the women who were NOT on hormonal birth control, their selection via scent and their selection via sight matched up. They got the “right match” for themselves. They both saw and felt attracted to the same men. I have no idea how this all works, but apparently their visual and olfactory senses were linked up in a totally cool way.
For women on hormonal birth control, there was no correlation between the visual photos and the kisses. They saw one thing, but they felt or smelled another. It appears as though (again, from this one small study) that hormonal birth control may actually trick you into being attracted to men you wouldn’t ordinarily be attracted to.
You may not find someone with the right immune system for you…
Or, worst of all – what happens if you fall in love on the pill, then stop taking it and the scent of your lover changes for you?!
Yikes.
NOW, again, this is all preliminary stuff. But fascinating.
Plus, we already know, and for absolutely certain, that pheremonal scent is a facet of the human experience women on hormonal birth control don’t get to have as much as the rest of us. This is a fact. I’m not saying you can’t be attracted to people while on the pill – you just don’t get to smell them as well as otherwise.
And may in fact be smelling incorrectly.
So I’m thanking my lucky stars I’m not on it. As for being attracted to men, well, hah. I’ll take all the help I can get.
What’s your experience been? What do you think?
Is this plausible, obvious, crazy?!
(Again – for more on all the stuff I think about birth control – you can see it @ https://www.healthtoempower.com///birth-control. And find my bestselling book on women’s health @ Amazon.)
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This is so fascinating!
And I think this might be true. I was always wondering how this “I want you, I need you” thing works – because sometimes we are attracted to the men (I a not speaking about personality at this moment at all ;)) and we feel this chemistry, even though we would never believe that we would choose this person. For example if we would see him in the photo, this guy wouldn’t be our first choice .
I don’t know if anyone can understand what I mean (except from me), but I think it is really cool! And I am grateful that I never took birth control pill!
Hi Stefani, I’m a big fan of your work but as someone who works in women’s health as well I am not very pleased with how you titled this post. In fact birth control did not ruin your love life, HORMONAL CONTRACEPTION did. Birth control refers to all methods of avoiding pregnancy, including condoms, the diaphragm, pull-out method, etc. Since 50% of pregnancies in this country are still unintended, I am very concerned with a campaign against “birth control.” To argue against birth control in general is too argue that women should either remain abstinent (yikes) or chance pregnancy after all sex (super yikes). I do not believe you intended that and hope you can make clarification. I personally use the Copper IUD and have only positive things to say.
Hi Liz –
That’s actually a good point. I am super 100% in favor of birth control and have in fact never once had sex without some form or another. “Birth control” is simply shorter – it’s hard to write a good blog title that isn’t too bulky. I’ll change it right now, actually
Thank you for this article – it was a very interesting read. I came off the birth control pill almost 2 years ago now, and am so grateful that I did. However, the repercussions are still affecting me today – I am still yet to receive my period after coming off the pill. I have had numerous tests etc and seen a variety of health professionals and we have found that the pill has actually affected my hormones and even the production of these hormones. If anyone ever asks me about going on the pill or says they are thinking about it I strongly recommend that they do not. The points you have addressed above are just 1 potential complication – the number of issues the pill can potentially cause is ridiculous, yet I feel many women are not made aware of such issues.
Thank you for addressing the issues that many people, and mainstream medicine, seem to want to avoid!!
Totally Georgia – thanks! I have a lot of posts written on all the different problems – just buried all over in my blog and books. 🙂
I totally experienced this. I started birth control when I was 17. Everything was hunky dory until I had my first baby. I went back on the pill because that’s what had always worked. It took me a year to figure out what was going on. After I stopped the pill, my sex drive returned to normal.
I can believe it! After having horrendous issues with the pill, I do believe it dramatically decreases your sexual desire. And depo provera does too. If your desire decreases, then why wouldn’t your sense of pheromone detection decrease as well, if not get all thrown off?! Birth control, for me, has sucked. In fact, it could have likely made those years of being on it, all lot less enjoyable than it would have otherwise.
yes, definitely. I mean – for SOME women it helps restore balance, but for a lot of others it just messes up so many things 🙁
I just finished reading Sex at Dawn based on the recommendation in your last article. This topic, as well as everything else in the book, was totally fascinating. I met my husband/partner of 20+ years at age 19, right around the time I started taking birth control (which my doctor put me on for bad cramps – don’t get me started!), so I wonder how long it took for my judgment to become impaired . . . I was definitely more interested in sex when I went off the pill after 10 years (yikes!) and tried to conceive – but the “baby sex” got old really fast when we discovered I was infertile. I now believe that taking birth control set the stage for leaky gut and autoimmune disease (Hashimoto’s thyroiditis), which caused my “unexplained” infertility. Fortunately with medical intervention I was eventually able to have two children, but only recently with no hormonal birth control or breastfeeding (and changing my diet to treat autoimmune disease) do I finally enjoy the sex drive I think I was missing out on for most of my adulthood. Thank you Stefani for spreading the word and helping to educate women on the perils of messing with hormones!
I can tell you in a few weeks, because I just switched from pill to contraceptive coil.
Even with pill I loved to snuggle close to my bf to inhale its smell. Hope it stays that way.
Silke
I have so much to say about this! I was on birth control for over 10 years when I married my husband. Shortly after we got married I stopped taking the pill and notice that my attraction, my feelings, everything I felt about him had changed. I wish there was more research about this. Thanks for this!
Did your feelings come back? I am going throught this right now, and I would really like to know how you handled this and how long the emotionless towards your partner lasted.
How did things turn out for you? They did not for me at all. Unfortunately my marriage ended after 13 years and 16 years total together! And it was all the pill – had I not been on it I never would have been attracted to him. Within three months of quitting the pill in December 2015, he started smelling to me and not good at all. Ugh…sometimes I would almost want to puke.
WELL, a few times when we would go out people would ask if we were SIBLINGS, we look that much alike I guess – same exact skin tone, eye color including fleck, hair tone, hair texture and thickness even. Eeek. I sought out kin (I am sure somewhere in there we cross or have shared genetics).
But it’s good because I was on the pill for 30+ years and it started to impact my endocrine system, it’s so bad for you. I have fortunately bounced back amazingly well endocrine/metabolism wise and my period never interrupted :), which was absolutely amazing. Not a single month for 15 months was late or “off” though I had no period on the pill, the month after I got off it I started the period without delay, 27 days later. Then at 15 months I had some interruptions but I was also leaving my husband and the stress was unbelievable so…yeah, that explains that, but now I am back to normal as is my cycle. I am 50 years old and apparently they have discovered that if you are very healthy and on the pill you can save some follicles/eggs as you don’t ovulate. But you have to be in phenomenal shape, which I am. I think I could have children into my late 50s if I wanted to do that, though I don’t think I would, I definitely have considered it now that I am off that damn pill – the idea is much more attractive.
wow, what an impactful story. thank you so much for sharing 🙂
I met my husband in college and was not on birth control, and there was definitely a magnetic, love at first site chemistry that was crazy. We got married 13 months after we met. I was on birth control for about 2 years total during the time we started dating exclusively and got married, and I was almost repulsed by him during this time. It is kind of amazing that we stayed married. My libido was in the dirt and he was just not as appetizing. He smelled bad to me and I could barely stand to be around him.
The pill gave me a pre-clot in my calf, so I had to go off of it (total blessing in disguise) and I got pregnant about a month after. I felt the same sort of repulsion when I was pregnant with my twin daughters, but I basically had 3 sets of female hormones in my body (not a fun party to go to).
Because we had twins and I had such a difficult pregnancy, he decided to have a vasectomy after our girls were born, so I have not been on any artificial hormones for almost 13 years. I am 35, and we are coming up on our 14th wedding anniversary, but I still have a blind, crazy animal attraction to him.
I can smell when he is aroused and his saliva tastes differently when it is go time. I am glad that we chose each other before I started any hormonal bc. We have a very active, -ahem- quality sex life, he is my best friend and we have a lot of fun together – – in and out of the bedroom. I definitely noticed a difference with and without birth control. Thank goodness I was only on it for a very short time.
One final observation, and I know this is a stretch and very anecdotal, but our daughters are almost never sick. They are some of the healthiest kids I know. Just something to think about.
Well can I just say WOW and thank you for sharing WOW
Here is a link to the abstract of a recent, related study that you may find interesting:
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/48/17081.abstract
It is about the discontinuation of hormonal birth control, and how this may affect female marital satisfaction. I think it is a good supplement to your post.
Amanda
Awesome! Thank you!!!!
Dear Stefani,
I’m just going to say this: there are NO positive effects of birth control pills. Trust me. After more than 2 years of recovery from that awful poison and research about it, I can honestly say that they seem to have been made to destroy womens’ life. The loss of libido is just the tiniest part of all the evil it makes, the TINIEST. I went to the ER 4 times due that horrible thing. Stay FAR FAR FAR away from it.
I was on the pill for over 10 years. I (and some of my good friends) realized that the men I started dating after I stopped the pill were very different than the ones I was dating while on the pill. I dont think I ever had a type when it came to looks so cant really tell on that end. But character wise the complete opposite is now attractive to me. Thats when I started researching the net for answers and actually found some of the studies you are writing about.
I also feel like my own character has changed completely.
It seriously is scary!
When I met my boyfriend, I wasn’t on the pill. I started taking the pill 6 months after we starting being in an official relationship. I started taking it because I wasn’t and never was regular in my cycles (I could skip 2 months without having them, and then the next month I would be only a week late, etc). My doctor thought I had too much male hormones, so she tought the pill could regularize it.
So at first I had the “normal” side effects from the pill (mostly nausea). But during my pms, I had this doubts about my relationship, and whether I liked him or not, but after the pms, it would go back to normal. I’ve taking the pill for approximately 8 months and then I talked with my doctor and decided to stop it. Holy crap. I started having huge doubts about my feelings for my significant other, and being repulsed and unattracted to him. I would almost throw up when I was next to him. After my first cycle, it got better and now I’m about to have my second one. I still feel like shit, and I have anxiety about whether I love him or not, if it will go back to normal. If you can avoid taking it, then don’t take it. I feel like I’m a stranger in my own body. I really hope that I’ll get better, because after 2 months of the living hell, I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.
My advice, don’t take oral birth control.
Thanks for sharing, Amel. Hormones take longer than a month to rebalance… sometimes a few months. If you want to, hanging in there could help 🙂
Hey, I am in the same exact situation. If you want to talk, you can email me at chinook122710@gmail.com ive been dealing with the same side effects and relationship problems as you have for 5 and a half months.
-Sasha
I have to say after reading this article I felt validated. I got my mirena ring out 3 weeks ago and I have been all over my husband. I told him 3 days ago that its weird, I can smell you again like I could when I was pregnant with our kids. ( the only times I’ve been off some form of birth control) we always joked pregnancy made me horney but in reality it was not being on birth control. I have had sex more in the last 3 weeks since getting the mirena ring out than I’ve had all year combined. And I’m the one getting the ball rolling which never happens. I can smell my husband like I could when I was pregnant and it’s turned me into a sex crazed wife that can’t get enough. It’s absolutely bizarre and I must say the orgasm is intensified and longer for some reason. This article made me feel like what I was feeling was Truly validated. It’s hard to explain to people and this gave it a voice.
thank you so much for sharing. i’m so glad you’ve got your mojo back 😀 <3