While kisspeptin seems to stimulate libido and might play a part in boosting orgasms thanks to an enhanced emotional connection, there are other peptides that help with the physical mechanisms of getting intimate. Arousal is slippery (hah) and blurs into the other phases of desire. Usually, folks struggling with arousal have pain or dryness during sex.
To help, Dr. Lans says he likes to prescribe growth hormone peptides, like tesamoroline, ipamorolin, or CJC-1295, which increase the natural production of growth hormone. “Most of the benefits are in energy, body composition, sleep, but it also tends to help with a person’s sexuality,” he says. In short, it delivers some of the benefits of growth hormone, which spikes during puberty then lilts throughout adulthood, without actually taking synthetic growth hormone (which is unsafe as it functions similarly to steroids). More research is needed on why it revs up arousal, but studies indicate it’s because it increases blood flow to the genitals, thus making the clitoris more sensitive.
All of this sounds nice, but consistent, increased desire will likely never be as simple as popping some peptides into your daily routine. Medications to treat female sexual dysfunction have come under scrutiny, with critics saying that the issue is not our biological sexual response, but the cultural understanding of it. Emily Nagoski, PhD, former director of wellness education at Smith College and author of Come As You Are, wrote a 2015 New York Times opinion piece in response to Addyi’s FDA approval. In it, she argues what women need “is not medical treatment, but a thoughtful exploration of what creates desire between them and their partners.” Her point being, medications like Addyi give the impression that if arousal doesn’t hit you like a torpedo (or erection), if your orgasm is stubborn or latent, then your sexual response is broken. These medications could provide an excuse—to the people who take them, to society as a whole—to forgo exploring beyond the bounds of our (heteronormative) sexual bullpen.
If you’re struggling with desire, perhaps you’re just not having the type of sex that turns you on, your desire is far more responsive than spontaneous (meaning your partner says something sexy and then your libido materializes), or maybe you’re just stressed. We can’t neglect the societal reasons women often have lower sex drives—balancing children, household labor, beauty standards, and a career all cause stress and can lead to a lower libido. On top of that, past sexual trauma can devastate a desire response.
Like Nagoski, I worried that products like this could be a shortcut to “good sex,” like the dry shampoo of orgasms. Like Rogan explaining peptides for longevity, his head in a cloud of kush smoke.
Do these products manufacture desire without intimacy? Candice Nicole Hargan, Ph.D., associate professor at Emory University and author of Good Sex, likens peptides to vibrators: both valid tools that can enhance your sexual experiences. “If you’re learning how to sexually communicate, as you practice those skills, maybe you have something supplemental, like one of these peptides,” she says, “I have a lot of compassion for people who are learning that skill. Saying what you need sounds so easy, and yet, it’s not for a lot of people.”
“In the meantime,” she says, speaking to all of us, “I do want you to have the pleasure you’re worthy of.”
As we live longer, with optimal body composition, with smoother skin and perfect memory, maybe, just maybe, there’s more pleasure in store.
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