Women swamp men's sex helpline

Women are phoning men's sexual helplines

A leading men's sexual health charity is considering changing its name because so much of its work involves advising women.

The Impotence Association has noticed an upsurge in the number of women calling it trying to get help themselves - often for problems they have suffered for decades.

It is now consulting its members to find out whether to change its name to acknowledge its change in role.

The rising demand for sexual advice from women is thought to be a spin-off from the success of the anti-impotence drug Viagra for men.

A spokesman for the Impotence Association said that many of the problems were long-standing ones, and gave the example of one 50-year-old woman who found sex with her husband painful, but had not looked for help and continued to have regular sex because she thought it was expected.

Women are now desperate to improve their sex lives, says one expert.

Martin Cole, from the Sexual Education Institute in Birmingham, said: "Women are demanding some kind of recognition from society, and particularly from men and other women, that they are sexual animals.

'Resounding yes'

"If you should ask women whether they would like to use some sort of pharmaceutical medication to improve their sexual relations, I guess in between a quarter to a half of cases, there would a resounding yes."

However, Alan Riley, the professor of sexual medicine at the University of Central Lancashire, says that any implication that women are much more similar to men in their attitudes to sex is false.

He said: "A tablet is unlikely to impove the relationship. It may well improve a woman's sexual arousal or desire, but if there are relationship issues she's unlikely to feel any improvement."

Pharmaceutical companies are now racing to develop a female equivalent of Viagra - and even the original drug, which can help impotent men by improving blood flow, has been found to increase sexual arousal in women.