Couples prefer to have sex when they want to, rather than “on demand” after taking a pill, according to a study just published by two Hamilton doctors.

One hundred Waikato couples were included in the world-first study by husband-and-wife team John and Helen Conaglen, who researched whether women preferred their partner to use Viagra or its main rival, Cialis, for erectile dysfunction.

It showed fewer than one in five women preferred the man to use the shorter-lived Viagra with the rest, almost 80 per cent, choosing Cialis the effect of which can last at least 36 hours.

Dr John Conaglen, an associate professor at the Waikato Clinical School of Medicine, said this showed women favoured having sex “when it pleases you as a couple, as opposed to on-demand”.

“This is a ground-breaking study because no-one’s ever asked women what their views were on this before,” he said.

“All other research has been devoted to whether the male has a normal erection or not, disregarding the impact on the female.

“The effects were much greater than we expected.

“They showed very strong preference towards Cialis.”

Published on Wednesday, the $300,000 study which took almost two years, would help people better understand what happened when erection difficulties became a part of their lives and how treatment would affect the woman in the relationship.

The 100 heterosexual, long-term couples who volunteered for the research after an appeal in the Waikato Times in 2005 were aged between 40 and 80.

Dr Conaglen said the couples were relatively naive about drug treatment for erectile dysfunction “in other words they weren’t on one or the other (drug)”.

His wife, psychologist Dr Helen Conaglen who conducted most of the research said women were affected in many ways by a partner who had erection problems.

Most missed the closeness within their relationship when there was little sexual activity because of the man’s problems. 

“Many of the women felt that their partner’s use of these medications had revived many aspects of their relationship, restoring togetherness and closeness that had been lost with the erection problems they had been having before the study,” she said. The research also challenged previously held stereotypes, such as the older population preferring shortacting drugs.

“We found, in fact, that older people had the same preferences as the younger participants in the study the majority preferred Cialis.”

The paper was published online in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

A grant big enough to cover the study work was paid for by Eli Lilly, which makes Cialis, but Dr Conaglen said the grant did not affect the credibility of the research.

Viagra has been on the market longer, but Cialis has eaten into its market share.

The Conaglens, who were not participants in the study, recently presented the research at international conferences in the US and Europe, and will do so again at the Australasian Multidisciplinary Sexual Dysfunction Conference next month.

 By NATALIE AKOORIE - Waikato Times