PARIS: Women who take the Pill tend to select male partners who are less attractive and worse in bed, but more reliable over the course of long-term relationships, a new study suggests.
Researchers investigated whether the use of oral contraception influenced how women selected the future father of their children.
The findings, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, show that women who took the pill when they met their partner were less sexually satisfied or attracted to their partners, but happier with other aspects of the relationship and consequently, were less likely to separate.
"Our results show some positive and negative consequences of using the Pill when a woman meets her partner," said psychologist Craig Roberts from the University of Stirling in Scotland, who led the investigation.
"Such women may, on average, be less satisfied with the sexual aspects of their relationship but more so with non-sexual aspects. Overall, women who met their partner on the Pill had longer relationships - by two years on average - and were less likely to separate."
International survey
The researchers questioned 2,519 women in the United States, Czech Republic, Britain and Canada who had had at least one child.
The volunteers for the study were recruited through personal contact, social networking sites and advertising on pregnancy and parenthood forum websites.
Of these women, 1,005 used oral contraception when they met their partner, while 1,514 had used no form of hormonal birth control at the first encounter
The volunteers were asked to rate their relationship for general satisfaction and sexual pleasure and the attractiveness of their partner or, retrospectively, their former partners.
Skewed sub-conscious 'chemistry'
Roberts suspects the Pill skews the sub-conscious "chemistry" by which a woman makes a mating choice. He suggests that the Pill alters a woman's preferences for masculine traits, to more feminine traits, such as the ability to care and provide for a family.
"Once the women stop using the pill, their preference may revert to its pre-pill state and may mean that the partner no longer seems as attractive as he did before," Roberts cautions.
Previously, Roberts found that using oral contraceptives altered women's preferences for men's body odour. When they didn't take the Pill, women were subjected to the strong hormonal swings of the menstrual cycle.
During ovulation, they unwittingly preferred the smell of men who were genetically dissimilar. The evolutionary explanation for this is that babies that are born from genetically dissimilar couples tend to be healthier and have a better chance of survival.
Sexually unhappy
But when women took the Pill, they preferred the smell of genetically similar men. This was because the normal hormonal swings of the menstrual cycle evened out under the effect of the contraception.
The hormone levels typically reflected the non-fertile phase of the menstrual cycle, when women "are more attracted to men who appear more caring and reliable - good dads," said Roberts.
Although such men are a better choice for long-term partnerships, the risk of a relationship breakdown is still there.
"Women who used oral contraception when they met their partner tended to find him less attractive, engaged in compliant sex and rejected sexual advances more frequently as the relationship progressed, and were more likely to initiate separation if it occurred," the study noted.
