Earlier in the week I wrote up the results of a study that showed that women who were on the pill when they were dating may wind up partnered with mates they're not all that into once they go off the birth control pill. The pill suppresses ovulation and studies have shown that ovulating women prefer men who are more masculine and "more... genetically unrelated," like the butch guy on the right; women who aren't ovulating prefer guys who are more feminine and genetically more similar, like the pansy on the left. From my post:

Alvergne and Lummaa theorize that all those suppressed ovulations may have dire consequences where sexual compatibility and long-term marital success are concerned. It can't be pleasant, after all, to realize you're not as attracted to your spouse as you thought you were once you stop taking the pill. And couples who are genetically similar—the kind of pairings the pill promotes—are more likely to have infertility issues. Which is, um, also bad. And then there's this: since men have been shown to find ovulating women more attractive, "...the use of oral contraceptives may influence a woman’s ability to attract a mate by reducing attractiveness to men, thereby disrupting her ability to compete with normally cycling women for access to mate."

I wrote the authors of the study—Dr. Alexandra Alvergne and Dr. Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield—asked what they thought its implications were. Should women switch to the IUD? Should an engaged woman go off the pill to make sure she's not marrying a too-genetically-similar swish? Should we, you know, panic? Dr. Alvergne wrote me right back... but her email wound up in my spam folder. (Sorry about that, Dr. Alvergne.) Her letter—and her answers—after the jump...

With regard to what the public should learn from all this, we would like to be cautious making any strong conclutions at this point. Our paper is a review putting together all the published work on this topic so far, and while the general trend certainly point to the direction that the pill might indeed affect mate preferences in both sexes in a very intriguing way, we badly need further studies experimentally testing these effects.

There are indeed important limitations from previous studies; due to the fact few of them have been addressing the question as their main focus. We thus need further studies using within individual designs, and investigating whether general differences between pill users and non-users account for the effect of the pill on mate preferences. Secondly, we need studies linking mate preferences to actual mate choice. And finally, if the pill is found to be strong enough to affect mate choice, we hope our review will encourage studies investigating two questions:

• Does the use of the pill affect marital relationship, satisfaction and durability?
• Does the pill affect the ability of couples to reproduce?

So, at this point, we wouldn't like to raise any concern among the pill users, just awareness that these type of effects might also be possible. It's up to everyone themselves to evaluate any costs and benefits of the pill in their personal circumstances,and as we made clear, the pill has a whole range of many positive effects from a social and medical point of view that cannot be overseen.

Hope that the answer is not too frustrating!

You can read the study for yourself by downloading the PDF here.