No

by Paola Fanutti

Created on: January 07, 2008

In our over medicated society, popping pills is fast becoming the solution to every sort of ailment nowadays, to the extent that people are being physically and socially controlled through medication.

Are people so incapable of controlling their sexual emotions and desires that they require a pill to prevent them from cheating? What an absurdity.

Sexual desire is not an endemic disease to be cured; it is a normal physiological response to external stimulation. All people, regardless of marital status, experience sexual attraction at various times for various individuals, and it is completely normal even for people in marriages and relationships to desire persons other than their partners.

What may or may not be normal and/or socially acceptable is how people handle those feelings of sexual attraction for someone other than their partner. People who love each other generally voluntarily agree to be monogamous and stay faithful.

If someone requires a pill to stay faithful and reduce desire, this person simply does not love his or her partner. The supreme expression of love in a relationship is the voluntary choice of fidelity that partners make to each other on an ongoing basis. What is a greater sign of love, someone who remains faithful out of his or her own free will, or someone who remains faithful because it is the side effect of a narcotic or drug?

If an indiviudal loves his or her partner, he or she should not NEED to take a pill to remain faithful. The love and commitment in a relationship should suffice.

The concept of a 'stay faithful pill' perpetuates the preposterous idea that people are unable to remain faithful through their own efforts alone, and thus require medication to assist them. Humans are not animals and are not solely governed by instinct. We are all rationally and intellectually equipped to control and master our passions and desires, if we so choose, and any pharmaceutical company's proposition to develop a 'stay faithful pill' is insulting to the human psyche.

Furthermore, even if such a pill were to be developped, how could a mass produced pill be manufactured to cater to the unique circumstances of every individual relationship, as what constituts infidelity can differ between couples?

Society should be ashamed of even considering the possibility of allowing medical technology to control even our most basic human drives.

Some would argue that there are persons who would VOLUNTARILY submit to taking a 'stay faithful' drug in their own relationship, because of a genuine, physiologically based sexual dysfunction or addiction that is difficult to master and prevents one partner from being faithful, despite his or her best efforts. According to this view, a 'stay faithful pill' could benefit individual couples, willing to take such drastic measures to avoid cheating.

In this case, it is argued, that certain people with a sexual dysfunction should have access to medications that would reduce sexual desire to ensure that they remain faithful.

This is a terribly dangerous idea.

If sexual dysfunction has a biological origin, then the biological dysfunction must be treated with medication in such a way that the individual does not become dependent on an artificial substance to live a normal life and make autonomous lifestyle and sexual
choices.

Medication should never be used to treat social issues, as it will create another social problem, chemical dependency and addiction. What is far more important than medical treatment is empowering people through willpower, therapy and support to conquer and master their addictions, desires and drives, sexual or otherwise.

Where people are INVOLUNTARILY subjected to the effects of a 'stay faithful' type of pill or medical treatment, this is clearly a human rights violation, and violates an individual's sacrosanct right to free will. Female genital mutilation and forced sterilization are other examples of reproductive technologies that are used as social control mechanisms to stifle sexual expression. A pharmaceutical 'stay faithful' pill may seem less cruel and even benign, but its premise is the same as other methods of social sexual control: that people are biological animals lacking rational choice and their instincts, drives and desires must be synthetically regulated.

Utter nonsense.

The only possible social and legitimate use for a 'stay faithful' type of pill is in the case of sex offenders, whose expressed sexual instincts pose grave public harm. Psychologically normal people should not use medication to control and reduce their sexual desires and remain faithful to their partners, as it is entirely unnecessary and even harmful.

True, infidelity is a majour cause of divorce and break-ups, and everyone would be much happier if their partners would just stay faithful. Every now and then we have all wished that there was some way of ensuring and guaranteeing our partner's fidelity. But in the long run, infidelity is generally symptomatic of other problems in a relationship, so how would a 'stay faithful pill' address the emotional issues underlying someone's cheating? The pill may prevent physical cheating, but does nothing to solve the critical problems in the relationship that lead to the actual infidelity, and may even accentuate the problems by masking the physical cheating, thus lulling a partner into a false sense of security by believing the relationship is fine, when it is not.

Sexual fidelity (and infidelity) is therefore always a choice, and cannot be morally or socially enforced with medication by dampening sexual desire or attraction. If someone cheats, it is an unfortunate choice on the part of the cheater, but compelling (or wanting) someone to remain faithful through medication is an even more unfortunate choice on the part of the cheated, who deceives him or herself into believing in a fairy tale or blissful version of a relationship, where feelings of sexual attraction for other people are unnatural and curable, when in reality nothing is further from the truth.

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