Clits Get Their Marketing Day in the Sun

By Lara Riscol, AlterNet. Posted May 1, 2001.

Julie Roberts having wild, intensely orgasmic sex with Adam Sandler. Something I definitely don't care to see, but might come to theaters near you should their production companies nail rights to a Nerve.com article. In "Genie in a Bottle: The Sex Drink That's Rocking Little Rock," the Nerve author shares her discovery of a soft drink that promises to fire your libido. No, it's not Pepsi, but cobalt blue Niagara -- the female answer to Viagra.

The press has lapped up the story of this Swedish "aphrodisiac energy drink," which fizzled in Europe, yet has been flying off America's Bible Belt shelves into the homes of genteel ladies out to "pleeease their men." The Niagara frenzy taps into the market's latest goldmine: female sexual desire. Ever since Pfizer struck the mother lode with pharmaceutically inspired erections, biotech execs are falling over themselves for a cream, or pill, to likewise inspire women.

Until Viagra became the billion-dollar-a-year cure for impotence, who knew that the fairer sex too needed fixing? Studies now find that nearly half of all women, young and old, have experienced FSD. If you don't know about FSD, you soon will; if you're a woman, you'll probably get it if you don't already have it. Female Sexual Dysfunction, which can mean anything short of achieving tidal wave orgasms, has become science's pet sexual disorder. Forget the sexual revolution. The chemical revolution has arrived to help us all -- man and woman -- reach our pleasure potential.

Leading the charge in female sexual healing are the young blond Berman sisters, one a sex therapist, the other a urologist. Featured on Oprah, the FSD media darlings moved to L.A. from Boston, founding both a sexual medicine clinic at UCLA and the Network for Excellence in Women's Sexual Health. Their NewShe website logo is a silhouetted lady leaping as toward a finish line, back arched, arms stretched in a V, head thrown back in victory.

Used to be a woman could never be rich enough or thin enough. Now let's pile on orgasmic enough. Quality Paperback Book Club recently featured "The Multi-Orgasmic Couple" as "The Joy of Sex for a new generation stimulating hope for the undersexed and the champion amorist." Yeah, I want to be a champion. But forget about education and healthy relationships, give me Dr. K's Dream Cream "orgasm enhancer." Or soon there'll be a miracle pill to pop just like the diet pills that let me forget about exercise and healthy food and eat all the chocolate death I want while watching television.

In fact the Amazon.com page for the Bermans' "For Women Only" lists a diet book among those bought by customers who made "The Guide to Overcoming Sexual Dysfunction" a bestseller. Although the mind-body sex doctors claim not to endorse any product, they mention the EROS-CTD clitoral pump during their many interviews. An ad for the FDA-approved treatment lies next to their ecstatic logo lady: "As Seen on National Television!" The clumsy-looking gadget increases blood flow to the genitals for just under $400. So does a $100 suction pump from your local sex toy store. As does a $10 vibrator. Or manual stimulation, otherwise know as masturbation.

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