by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

A new drug that makes women sexually aroused is fast being tested in lab experiments, and some Montrealers were the first to attest to its orgiastic benefits. Those hot and heavy Montrealers were rats, but Jim Pfaus believes that rat sexuality isn’t all that different from our own.

Pfaus, 46, of NDG, has been a Concordia psychology professor since 1992, and has been testing many aspects of sex, but it’s his results with an experimental nasal spray developed by American pharmaceutical company Paladin that has brought him international attention.

The compound, called PT141, is a knockoff of the naturally occurring brain chemical melanocyte, and it may alter the course of sexual history for its tendency to arouse both genders. Human trials in the States are in the third stage for men, and at a somewhat earlier stage for women.

“Paladin approached me saying they have this drug that works in males and they’d like to test it on females,” says Pfaus. “It was a first, because back in 2001, nobody really gave a damn about increasing women’s sex drives. Yes, Pfizer was testing Viagra in women, but they were only testing blood flow, which doesn’t mean much in women.”

Paladin was originally interested in the stuff as a drug to help light-skinned people get better suntans. But the Americans noticed that those who tried it got all hot and bothered.

Once Pfaus’s little rats got a sniff, they responded with such unaccustomed sexual vigour that Pfaus was left with little doubt. “I was really surprised because I’d never seen a drug have such a specific action,” he says.

Too much focus on the penis

Up until now, few had tried to develop a drug to sexually arouse women because the task involves more than getting blood to move around. “Women are probably much more dependant on other cues like vaginal wetness, mucous excretion, heart rates, whether you gave her flowers and remembered her birthday—she’s likely to take all that information and put it together and say, ‘Now I feel like fucking his brains out,’” says Pfaus. “Getting to desire has been a difficult challenge.”

PT141 was initially being developed with men in mind, as an alternative to Viagra. Females were an afterthought, something Pfaus finds unfortunate. “What do we tell women: ‘There’s nothing for you because everything begins and ends with the holy penis?’”

Like all of the best drugs, there’s a potential for abuse, but Pfaus says that it’d be difficult to transform PT141 into a date-rape weapon. It can’t be eaten or inhaled through the ventilation system.

“As a nasal spray, it comes into the nasal mucous and then penetrates the brain,” he says. “Even if you pumped it in the air supply, there wouldn’t be enough dosage to get into your nose. Also, it can’t be transformed into a pill because it’s structured as a protein. Taken as a pill it would break down too rapidly.”

This doesn’t mean that uptight librarians will immediately be trying out for Gang Bang Girls Part 72 after a toot. While girl rats were administered the spray, they didn’t go for any old Tom, Harry or Dick. “It didn’t really make them less choosy, it just made them want more sex with the males they want more sex with,” he says.

But it seems to cause the females to make the first move. “Accepting a sexual proposal isn’t the same as initiating sex activity,” says Pfaus. “We’re not talking about spreading your legs and thinking of England, but rather initiating sex. Women tend to do that around the time they ovulate,” says Pfaus, who considers the initiatory behaviour as key, and the rats displayed it.

“The unambiguous marker of sexual desire is soliciting it,” he says. “Many female [rat] subjects had never initiated sex in their lives. They’d always accepted it and [after accepting the drug] were clearly accepting it at a higher rate. To me, that was the most rewarding and gratifying thing.”

From Kinsey…

Pfaus says animal models suggest that human sexuality is more malleable than otherwise presumed. For example, weaker, multiple orgasms might be a lost part of the male repertoire. “Women can have all sorts of orgasms that men can’t,” he says. “Their brains never lost the ability to have multiple orgasms, while men did. There’s a nugget in 1948 from Kinsey. He interviews these guys who all went to camp together as adolescents. The counsellor was a pedophile and had them doing group masturbation. They could achieve erection, ejaculate and get an erection again in five minutes and do this all night. They reported that it felt good, but not [as powerful as] the orgasms they knew as adults.”

Pfaus says that the loss might have an adaptive advantage. “Once puberty hits, it gets linked to reproduction. Your hormones have now activated bonding and love, so when you’re refractory [limp], you might be giving your balls more time to make sperm so you won’t be shooting blanks. It’s an interesting hypothesis that we could study in animals.”

Such examples demonstrate that much sex research couldn’t be ethically tried on humans, which is why Pfaus’s animal research is coveted. Humans would not likely volunteer for a study on rape. Overcoming inhibition is another impossible study, as those who volunteer for sex studies are, says Pfaus, by definition uninhibited.

…to Shakespeare

Pfaus’ 15-year-old study on the effect of booze on sex remains frequently discussed in the sex-academic communities. “Macbeth talks about how alcohol provokes the desire but takes away the performance,” he says. Science proves the Bard correct: Being a bit drunk can prolong erections, and perhaps reduce inhibition. “You can go all night because you’re not triggering the ejaculation,” says Pfaus. When drunk, he says, “You’re anaesthetizing that part of your spinal cord.”

So Pfaus trained rats to be inhibited to evaluate the effect of alcohol on sexual impulse. Rats aren’t normally inhibited, so Pfaus gave them rampant sex with willing female rats and then replaced the randy she-rodents with unwilling females. The violent refusals on the part of the coy females resulted in the inhibited male rats no longer trying anything, even with ready females. Once boozed up, however, the he-rats went wild.

“Some were idiots—they’d mount the female’s head, things like that. They all showed inappropriate sexual responses,” says Pfaus, who concludes that male humans’ beer-goggle response is similar. “If you got a really drunk guy able to have an erection, he’d probably have sex with a vacuum cleaner if you told him it’s his girlfriend.”

No hard wire

Animal experiments tell Pfaus that human sexuality is a lot more malleable than otherwise imagined. DNA tests show that many animals assumed to be monogamous aren’t, and polygamous animals will cross into one-animal love when they have little choice of partners.

“We think of sex as being hardwired,” he says. “New research is violating all the classic normative rules that says males want to spread the gene pool and females have this incredible genetic investment so they want to pick Mr. Right. It’s not true for our species or others. Depending on personal experience, you’ll be more prone to monogamy or polygamy.”

A variety of sexual destinies—even those that might seem unlikely—is possible depending on circumstance, he contends. “You read in the newspaper that a couple celebrated their 70th anniversary, and you might think, ‘How the hell is that possible?’” says Pfaus. “You might think, ‘Love doesn’t happen like that,’ but nobody adds the ‘for me.’ It doesn’t happen until it happens.”