The Science Of Sex: The New 'Having It All'

It feels like you can't blink these days without a new scientific discovery affecting women's sexual and reproductive behavior.

On Tuesday, a test was unveiled that predicts menopause to within four months. The test measures the concentrations of a hormone that is produced by cells in the ovaries. According to the Iranian researchers who authored the study, the hormone level can help predict when a woman as young as 20 will reach menopause. If these results can be replicated by larger studies, women of all ages will have a much clearer idea of how long they are likely to remain fertile, with enormous implications for family planning and the timing of women's career choices.

But it's not just our biological clocks that we can now get the better of. Flibanserin -- or the so called "lady Viagra" pill that's been in the news lately -- purports to enhance sexual desire in middle-aged women. This female sex pill is quite possibly, as my colleague Alison Fairbrother notes, just an attempt by drug companies to normalize female desire (and make a few bucks while doing so). But given that the FDA's decision to yank it had to do with the pill's side effects -- not its purpose -- I think it's fair to say that it won't be too long before we see another pink pill on the horizon.

And then there's pregnancy prevention. My colleague Bonnie Erbé wrote recently about Ella -- the new morning-after pill that prevents pregnancy for up to 120 hours after unprotected sex. While we still don't know if the FDA will approve Ella in the U.S., it's already available over the counter and being marketed in 22 European countries.

Add these scientific developments up and you get a huge increase in the control women can potentially exert over their reproductive cycles and sexual behavior. I'm a big fan of sexual and reproductive autonomy. Whatever leaves women with more control over their bodies, their families and their careers is fine by me.

But I can't help but wonder whether we are also changing our understanding of what "having it all" means.

For a long time, women defined "having it all" primarily in the socio-economic realm. For some, it had to do with whittling down the gender pay gap. For others, it was about breaking through the proverbial glass ceiling by getting more women into prominent jobs in the private and public sector. For many, it has come to mean government policies that support flex time and part-time work arrangements in a way that enables women to be both mothers and workers without one role coming at the expense of the other.

But I can't help but wonder -- with each passing medical advance -- if "having it all" is increasingly less a fairness/equality-in-the-workplace issue than it is a biological and chemical one. Maybe science has shifted the debate such that -- at least if you buy the whole "end of men" argument -- the new frontier in feminism is all about controlling when we get pregnant (with laser-sharp forecasting), enhancing our sex drives, and having more levers at our disposal with which to prevent pregnancy altogether.

It's a brave new world, ladies. Oh yeah, and in case you're not into popping all those pills? As we fantasized recently there's finally even a birth control pill for men.

Now, *that's* what I call having it all.

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