Viagra: The Thrill That “Was”

The NY Times Fashion and Style section has officially declared that old people hugging is the new old people fucking in an article titled “Viagra: The Thrill That Was.” Citing the 5% drop in prescriptions for erectile dysfunction drugs in America after a steady 1% growth over 4 years, the NY Times considers options while pointing out the shaky claim that “the drop seems all the more significant given that the population is aging, so there are surely more men who potentially need the drug.”

The article starts out with some famous older men and then their penchant for younger women, child rearing at a later stage of life, or getting to bone without the problem of erectile dysfunction. For some reason, Osama Bin Laden was added into the mix because herbal Viagra was discovered in his compound. The first third of the essay creates a world in which we are bombarded with the message that old people are fucking. The article is skeptical of this claim and immediately presents us with some facts to consider: a drop in the number of E.D. drug prescriptions, a lack of refills among those distributed, and the absence of a Viagra fueled population bump. The information presented is faulty and riddled with logical gaps but it was written for the fashion and style section.

Nevertheless, let us consider the facts. It’s more than likely that the novelty and the newness of the drug has worn off quite a bit in the 11 years that the drug has been on the market but the article is focuses on the 5% drop in prescriptions. Prescriptions are not the only source of this drug and so this number is unreliable for actual use and consumption.

I don’t know about you, but I get an influx of spam emails advertising cheap E.D. drugs every single day. I have to beat back offers for cheap and quickly delivered erectile dysfunction drugs back with a shovel.

Ordering the little blue bill or any of its variations is infinitely easier to do illegally from your own computer than it is to do legally. The paradigm of DRUGS as inebriating substances psychological eases the transaction. We don’t think of Viagra as a DRUG, we think of it as a tool. A tool that is kind of a pain in the ass to get a hold of legally in comparison to the ease and reduced cost of an online transaction.  You don’t have to leave your home, you don’t have to speak to anyone face to face, and it is delivered to your doorstep. I’m more surprised that the number of prescriptions only dropped 5%.

I was also troubled by the casual speculation made by the expert source in regards to a lack of refills. “Another number is perhaps more telling: doctors widely observe that 40 to 50 percent of men who are given a first prescription do not end up refilling it. Perhaps the mentality is, as Dr. Kaminetsky suggested: “Having that blue pill is sort of like when they were kids but they walked around with a condom in their wallet: they may never have sex but they were ready.”

That’s a nice theory, it might be true, but were any patients asked why they did not refill their prescription?

One of the great things about Viagra is the fact that for many men, it works just as well from their medicine cabinet as it does in their bloodstream. America has total confidence in Viagra’s ability to make a dick hard. We have faith in Viagra. We know that even in the worst case scenario, if a man wants to have some sexy times but the whole world is falling to pieces around him, he can always reach for that pill and his dick will get hard.

Viagra in the medicine cabinet is an ace up the sleeve. Viagra allowed many men to stop freaking out about whether or not they were going to have an erection before sex. It normalized the fact that sometimes dicks don’t get hard when you want them to get hard. When the topic of boners entered the mainstream, we were able to acknowledge that the presence-or absence-of an erection is not a total assessment of relative sexiness. This was reassuring to more than cisgender men, however. It was also a reassurance to partners of all genders that the lack of an erection didn’t mean that they were less desireable, less loved, or less sexually skilled.

It’s far more likely that those Viagra scripts never got a refill because they were doing their job from the medicine cabinet.

It’s exceptionally patronizing to speculate that the reason why these scripts aren’t being refilled can be chalked up to the fact that people are not getting laid. I’m very troubled by Dr. Kaminetsky’s comparison of Viagra scripts to teenage boys always carrying a condom in their pocket and never really getting laid for many reasons. First and foremost, the article as a whole carries a heteronormative tone. An article about Viagra is inherently phallocentric but there is more than one place to put a hard dick. That aside, the biggest problem about teens carrying a condom around in their pocket for an extended period of time is the fact that they tend to use them eventually and at that point they can become more of a hazard than a helpful tool.

How many people can we realistically say walked to their medicine cabinet and saw a bottle of 2 year old Viagra that they totally forgot they had and then decided that since they weren’t using it, they might as well throw it out and then proceeded to do so? No fucking way. I would no sooner throw away all of the weird and esoteric screwdriver attachments that came with my toolkit than I would throw away my “instant boner” pills. As part of a public safety campaign, Americans are always reminded of the importance of having an emergency kit in their houses. We like to have useful things tucked away, even if they’re out of sight, because we feel better knowing that they are there and we are always grateful to have them when shit hits the fan and we really need them.

What I’m saying is, I have a level of concern with the fact that we aren’t asking people follow up questions about prescribed medications that can significantly alter blood pressure. This goes double for people who are in the prime demographic for taking other kinds of heart or blood pressure medications that can interact negatively with Viagra. It is not safe to assume, as a medical doctor prescribing medication, that the reason why your patient has not refilled their script because they’re just not fucking. It indicates a total lack of follow-up questions hinged on the notion that boys will be boys, always looking for sex and girls will be girls, always avoiding it. There’s also the heteronormative tone of the article is set by its sole focus on heterosexual relationships and of course reproduction.

The article points out the absence of a Viagra fueled population bump. If men of all ages can get an erection whenever they want, why don’t we have more Viagra babies to show for it? It would be obviously silly to assume that men in the 65+ and bin laden set would be interested in having sex with women who were over the age of 45. The immediate assumption by the author that men would automatically start competing with Hugh Heffner is ridiculous to people of all genders and all sexual orientations.

Then the article presents us with anecdotes about failed viagra experiments and ends on the romantic note of a couple who discovered that they had just been having Viagra sex to please each as a modern day “Gift of the Magi” story to demonstrate that Viagra is totally passe for today’s 65+ and bin laden crowd.

It isn’t just people in the 65+ and Osama Bin Laden set who use Viagra. An article about the fact that sex is not always what makes a relationship romantic or intimate for all people would be awesome. In spite of the exposure and access to this “wonder drug” there are more couples who connected over other ways to express love and affection would be awesome. There’s also the whole “penis in vagina is not the only sex act around” angle but I’m radical like that. I’m just curious as to why this article was written in the fashion and style section which is primarily concerned with the latest and greatest in cosmetics, the fashion runways, artisan cocktails, all the hottest parties, and the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

The article reads like a strange reassurance against something that isn’t actually troubling. To reiterate, there is no set amount of fucking that is “right.” It’s just a confusing article with a guest appearance by Osama Bin Laden that uses speculation to “prove” that fucking just isn’t as popular among the 65+ set as, seemingly, the media would have you believe. It jumps to conclusions where more questions should be asked and creates an open and shut case about something much more rich and complex. It’s an article is satisfied with easy answers and no curiosity about the alleyways of its logic. It’s in a hurry to point out that not everyone 65 years of age is fucking their brains out, but why?