Tessa Bona of Melbourne, who has always identified as straight, says her sexuality has changed since coming off the pill.
Tessa first started taking the pill in her teenage years, like many girls, to help regulate her period and develop pain, and continued to take it for the next 15 years.
The 30-year-old now testifies to herself that in all this time she has only dated men, and has never been attracted to women.
After breaking up with her boyfriend last year, Tessa decided it was the perfect time to take a break from taking the pill every day.
Then, as she says, "everything changed."
Within three weeks of that day, her life changed beyond recognition, and she felt like a completely different person, she said: "I had so much more energy, I was excited about life. On top of that, my sexuality changed - although I could always appreciate a woman's beauty, I never gave For women a romantic opportunity, I never really thought it was for me. That changed as soon as I went off the pill. Suddenly men are no longer attracted to me."
Within a month without the pill, Tessa began to be attracted to women and go on dates with women, and now she has been in a long-term relationship with her current partner for six months.
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Tessa is not alone with this strange experience, it turns out.
Hers, new research suggests that the birth control pill - which has been around since the 1960s - may influence women's choice of sons or partners.
Naturopath and expert on women's health, Kathryn Maslan, explains that a change of sexuality due to stopping the pill is possible, but although there are studies that prove that the pill affects the choices in partners "but it is really interesting to change sexual preferences so drastically. Studies have shown that women are attracted to the smell of men who are less similar They have it genetically, and when we take the pill it goes to partners who are more like us, and sometimes stopping the pill also affects mental health, and now she is free to feel and more free to explore other things."
The hormone specialist tells about many patients who undergo personality changes after stopping the pill: "I have seen massive personality changes in some of my patients who stop their hormonal contraceptives. Many of them have reported that they 'feel like a different person', which is not really surprising since there are millions of estrogen receptors and progesterone in the brain, and oral contraceptives basically turn off the natural production of estrogen and progesterone by delaying ovulation, and when they stop taking the hormones, women can experience changes in their emotional state - often for the better."
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"Phoebe is the absolute love of my life, I couldn't be happier," Tessa declares in reference to her current relationship "It's a completely different dynamic than being with a man. She's my best friend, I love every second I spend with her, and it breaks my heart to think that maybe This wouldn't have happened if I was still on pills."
Tessa says that the idea to stop taking them sprouted in her after she saw a video on TikTok about another woman's experience: "She felt really down, tired all the time, and just wasn't excited about life anymore. I really connected with what she said. I felt exactly the same - I didn't have Highs - not high, not low. I felt that I was indifferent, especially in the last three years until the age of 30. Therefore, when I became single last year, it seemed to me like an opportunity to try to live a little without the pill."
After going on a few dates with women, she met her current partner Phoebe (24), through a mutual friend, and it was love at first sight.
Now, six months later, she says they are both "happier than ever".
And the sexual orientation is not the only thing that has changed - the plans for the future are also not what they were before - while Tessa always thought that marrying and having children with a man was something she wanted, now she says that her desires for the future have also changed.
"I would still consider myself a bit bisexual" says Tessa "but I'm much more attracted to women. I barely look at men anymore - it's funny. The sexual attraction to guys is almost gone. Besides, when I was on the pill, and I was in relationships with men, I thought I was I want to settle down, have children and get married. But since I got off the pill, it's like my mind is much clearer and I realized that's not what I want at all."
"I think every woman should take a break for a while to check how she really feels, because it's a fact - the pill can change your desires and even make you a boring person, and I do believe that hormone levels can play a role in the object we're attracted to."
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