Taking the Pill Makes Women Choose Stable, Not-so-Frisky Partners: Study

Taking the Pill could make women choose stable male partners who are not so frisky in bed, a new study suggests.

Researchers questioned 2,519 women who hailed from Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic and the U.S. and had at least one child, the Agence France-Presse reported.

Of these women, 1,005 reported taking oral contraception when they first met their child's father while the rest were not taking hormonal birth control, the AFP reported.

The women who were taking oral contraception reported having more stable mates who were good fathers but were not always so sexually satisfying, according to the study abstract. And while the relationships tended to last longer, an increasing lack of sexual satisfaction meant that some women were more likely to initiate separation when it took place.

Our results show some positive and negative consequences of using the pill when a woman meets her partner, lead author Craig Roberts of the University of Stirling said in a statement. Such women may, on average, be less satisfied with the sexual aspects of their relationship, but more so with non-sexual aspects.

It all seems to come down to the biological aspects of choosing a good mate.

Women tend to find genetically dissimilar men attractive because resulting babies will more likely be healthy, Roberts said. It's part of the subconscious 'chemistry' of attraction between men and women.

Roberts has a bit of advice for women on the Pill.

Choosing a non-hormonal barrier method of contraception for a few months before getting married might be one way for a woman to check or reassure herself that she's still attracted to her partner, he said.

Research was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.