A drug company is testing an aphrodisiac nasal spray that works on women as well as men.

The Observer runs a long story on PT-141, which is says could revolutionise all our sex lives.

It’s encouraging that the drug industry is trying to develop something to tackle to sexual dysfunction of the entire population, although Julian Dibbell’s contention that the firm is “feminist” because it aimed get female rats ears wiggling is questionable.

The nasal spray has been developed from the so-called “Barbie drug”, which seems to promote weight loss, safe tanning, sexual arousal and is an anti-inflammatory.

The reporter speculates that it could become another club drug, with a similar potential to revolutionise our sex lives as the pill.

And if all that can follow from a drug which simply made pregnancy less a matter of fate than of choice, what then to expect from a drug that does the same thing to passion itself?

Meanwhile, an Israeli teenager has escaped military service on the basis that she is a feminist. Go girl.

Halili argues that military service is incompatible with feminist ideology on several levels: because of a hierarchal, male-favouring army structure; because the army distorts gender roles; because of sexual harassment within the army; and because of an equation between military and domestic violence.

And finally, the Equalities Review is running a series of events to discuss their report on violence against women. Have your voice heard.

Posted by Jess McCabe on 23 April 2006, at 10:16 AM