Birth Control Affects Your Sex Drive, According to Study

There are lots of different birth control choices, from the pill to IUDs to the implant. Some of them are hormonal, and even the kinds of hormones in each kind is different. People choose one kind over another for a ton of different reasons, and sex is often one of them. What you might not know, though, is the type of birth control you choose could affect what kind of sex you have.

According to a study published in the journal Evolution & Human Behavior, researchers found that the varying hormones in your birth control can contribute to when you want to have sex with a partner.

Hormonal birth control most often uses either estrogen, progesterone or a combination of both to prevent pregnancy. The study found people who use hormonal birth control higher in progesterone have more sex when they're in committed, loyal relationships, while people on birth control higher in estrogen are more likely to have sex when they're not so committed to their partner.

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Beyond just being an interesting tidbit of information, and a kind of crystal ball for your sex life, this study actually tells us something really amazing. Researchers only took intercourse into account, not other sexual acts like masturbation, so the findings show that sex serves much more purpose for women than just getting pregnant. This might sound obvious, but with so many questions about why the female orgasm exists, any study that affirms women enjoy sex and feel pleasure from it is something we're all about.

"We're talking about intercourse here, not other types of sex like oral sex, masturbation and such. This strengthens the idea that sex outside the ovulation phase has a function besides just pleasure," Trond Viggo Grøntvedt, one of the researchers, said in a news release about the study.

So if you're sexually active with a partner and on birth control, see if the study was right. But either way, know that it's allowing you to enjoy the pleasure your body is set up to feel. It's a win no matter how you look at it.

Now, learn five healthy ways to treat your body this weekend: