Does testosterone increase female sexual behavior? According to my lecture notes testosterone generally increases sexual behavior. Given that it's generally thought to be the male hormone I'm not quite sure whether they mean that it also increases sexual behavior in females. What is the effect of testosterone on female sexual behavior?

I'll point you to this article by A. Tuiten et al.

To quickly answer your question, yes, **testosterone does have an enhancing effect on the sexual behaviour of human healthy adult females**.

The (admittedly small) study indicated that after an dose of testosterone was given to the women there was found:

* a statistically significantly _[sic]_ increase in genital responsiveness (P = .04)
* a statistically significant association between the increase in genital arousal and subjective reports of "genital sensations" (P = .02) and "sexual lust" (P = .01)



A time lag was reported from the administering of the dose to effects being seen of approximately 4.5 hours.

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**References**

* **Tuiten A**. 2000. Time Course of Effects of Testosterone Administration on Sexual Arousal in Women. Archives of General Psychiatry 57: 149–153.