What do women want? Speaking as one, Who knows?

But this much is clear: The answer is not Viagra. It's been five years since the Food and Drug Administration approved the first pill for male impotence, and while the guys are happy enough - sales hit $1.5 billion in 2001 - many of their wives, reportedly, are not.

As one older woman told my colleague Margery Eagan in May 1998, a few weeks after the little pill got the go-ahead: ``I don't want to become an elderly geisha.''

Nevertheless, like a swarm of killer bees, new male sex pills are heading this way from Europe, and sex researchers are hard at work trying to find a cure for female impotence.

But, alas, they're not having much luck. As one doctor told The New York Times, ``In women, problems are more subtle. Arousal blends with desire, and problems can be medical or nonmedical. And whereas it's hard for a man with an erection not to think about sex, a woman with increased blood flow will say she feels nothing.''

Hey, I'm no scientist, but I think I have an idea to help the women get turned on. Let's give the men new pills to take, but this time, let's dispense drugs that don't affect erectile function.

Here are some suggested medications, along with preliminary results from studies I've been conducting secretly in Europe and Asia during the past few months:

ListenEx. A little pink pill, this works by eliminating the noise of televised sports and news, thereby allowing the female human voice to get through the auditory canal. It permits men who've been unable to listen for years to enjoy their wives' long anecdotes about people they've never met.

``I was embarrassed to tell my doctor I couldn't listen,'' one man told researchers. ``I thought it was something to be ashamed of. Now I realize it's simply a medical condition.''

In fact, the results of a double-blind study I conducted in Finland showed that men given ListenEx were able to recall 57 percent more facts after hearing a story than those who took sugar pills.

In one spectacular test, a 51-year-old man accurately recalled the names of two people in a story told by his wife (``Nancy'' and ``Ron'') and the date of an upcoming dinner party he and his wife would be attending (Friday, June 8).

AdmiRa: This inhaler enables men to not only compliment their S.O.'s but to do so spontaneously. In one small study, a husband told his wife of 23 years, ``Those pants make you look thin'' before she asked if they made her look fat. And when asked if a new dress was flattering, he replied, ``Yes, but you look good in everything.''

ReMembra: Worn as a patch, ReMembra allows men to recall with pinpoint accuracy the location of any basic household item and then put it back when they're done using it.

In a study of 10,000 men in Spain, fully three in four on ReMembra were able to: replace a used towel on its hook; put the sponge back in the dish on the side of the kitchen sink; and recall that Friday is garbage day.

I know what you're probably thinking. These pills sound great, but are there side effects? Yes: Female desire reaches unbearable levels.

``I had to pretend I had a headache,'' one study participant said. ``Luckily, I was on Viagra, and that's a known side effect of that drug, so my wife believed me.''