Woman Turns Lesbian After Quitting Pill Reveals How Contraception ‘Dulls’ Sex Drive

An Australian corporate worker who became a lesbian after coming off the pill has revealed she felt “bored” while on contraception, and is now like a “horny teen” with her new girlfriend.

Tessa Bona, 30, from Melbourne, had been on the contraceptive pill since she was 15 when she decided to stop in 2021, and in just three weeks she noticed a number of physical and emotional changes.

“The last few years I was on the pill I felt bored,” Tessa told the Kyle and Jackie O. Show.

‘As soon as I put it down, I felt like a horny teenager. It’s crazy how much it affects us.

Tessa explained that while she used to be “100 percent into men” and wanted “the white fence and the kids and all that”, when she came off the pill she felt “like a different person”.

“There has been a definite change in my mentality,” he said.

‘Suddenly I thought, women are hot. When I met my now partner, Phoebe, I thought this is definitely for me.’

Tessa added: ‘Phoebe is the end game for me. I literally can’t see myself with anyone else.

‘Thank God I got off the pill.

“I’m living with my best friend and I couldn’t be happier.”

Speaking previously to FEMAIL, Tessa said she “genuinely feels like a different person in the best possible way” since making the switch.

“While on the pill, I had only been dating men, so the hormonal changes definitely had an impact on that in my opinion. I can appreciate that men are attractive, but I’m not currently sexually attracted to the way I was when I was at it,” Tessa told Daily Mail Australia.

“I also think it absolutely changed who and what I was attracted to, within a month of quitting I was much more curious and attracted to women.”

Tessa not only noticed that she was suddenly attracted to women, but she also lost weight, lost fluid retention, felt less fatigued, and instead, more alive and ‘more excited about life again’.

“It almost felt like my emotions weren’t regulating, like I couldn’t feel the ups and downs, it was almost a numb feeling.”

Tessa said she was “relieved” to stop using the pill because she “had no idea what an impact it was having” on her body.

In a viral TikTok video that has been viewed more than 305,000 times, Tessa’s girlfriend Phoebe said she’s willing to stop using the pill too, but expressed concern that it will change who she’s attracted to.

“So I’m still on the pill and now I plan to stop because I’m not going to get pregnant,” Phoebe said, pointing at Tessa.

‘What if I’m no longer attracted to you?’ she said, then Tessa added, ‘Because that’s a bull.’

Phoebe asked if anyone else had experienced changes in their sexuality after stopping the pill.

Hundreds told their stories and some claimed that “the same thing” had happened to them.

‘I went off birth control and literally became a lesbian,’ wrote one woman.

“I was engaged for four years, got off the pill, didn’t like it anymore,” said another.

A third added: ‘So true! I was with my ex for eight years (on the pill before I met him) when I got off the pill in January, we broke up in July.

But others said they didn’t experience any changes, or at least not much.

‘I started dating a girl for the first time! then i went off my birth control and nothing changed attraction wise but i went through the same panic,” wrote one woman.

Another said: “I had the opposite with my husband, I got unstuck and fell even more in love with him.”

A 2014 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that hormonal contraception “can have critical unwanted effects on women’s relationships.”

She followed 118 heterosexual couples who met while the woman was on birth control and found that she was less attracted to her partner when she came off the pill.

However, the findings show that a woman’s attraction to her partner depended on how conventionally handsome he was.

When they came off birth control, women were more likely to still be attracted to their partner if they “had a relatively more attractive face” than if they were not conventionally handsome by “evolutionary standards.”

Florida State graduate student who is the study’s lead author, Michelle Russell, said HOUR if your husband isn’t conventionally attractive and you come off the pill, his attractiveness might bother you more than before.

“Women who choose a partner when they are taking hormonal contraceptives and then stop taking them will prioritize their husband’s attractiveness more than they would if they were still taking them,” she said.

He said the change could be due to fluctuating estrogen levels or many hormonal reasons, adding that the research should not deter women from taking birth control, as it is just the results of one finding.

‘Whatever drug you take, people want to be informed consumers. This is just one factor that women might want to consider when deciding whether or not to wear them,” she said.