Boner in a Bottle: The Plusses and Pitfalls of ED Drugs

After a couple of glasses of Dewar’s the other day, my next-door neighbor, who’s 41, leaned my way and out of the blue started gushing about Cialis. We’d been talking about basketball, and suddenly, bingo, Tony was off and running, weaving and bobbing, describing the nonstop sex he had had for 36 hours. Meanwhile, Sandra, his wife, the woman he presumably had the sex with, was chatting up my wife in the kitchen 20 feet away about the neighborhood real estate market, as our three kids were killing each other in the bedroom, playing Nintendo.

Tony seemed to be in an extreme state of post-coital bliss. He kept crowing about the best sex he’d ever had. And the thing about Tony is, he and I never talk anything personal. Tony, I think, needed to proclaim what Cialis had done for him, for his wife, for the whole world.

Chalk it up to a newfound sense that men can and should have great sex for the rest of our lives. Call it our national erection, a god-given mandate that the trio of ED drugs out there -- Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis -- were placed on earth to bring peace and goodwill to our horny world.

Tony, mind you, is a serious sports guy. I doubt he’s ever asked for salad dressing on the side. Nor has he ever ironed a shirt, consumed an asparagus spear, or entertained thoughts of enrolling in a Bikram Yoga class.

But as word of the power of ED (erectile dysfunction) drugs spreads, even the most macho of our brothers is taking these sex pharmaceuticals for a spin and then boasting to anyone who’ll listen. Chalk it up to the New New-Age Guy.

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ED drugs are for the worried well. They’re accessories to modern life. Like Starbucks and digital cable. Starbucks sells high-priced caffeine by the vente and we gladly pay for it. Verizon FiOS gives us TV on our terms. Plastic surgery shapes and contours everything from noses and breasts to bellies to glutes. So why should ED drugs be any different? Aren’t they what life in the 21st century is all about? Sex -- how we want it and when we want it. It’s what we deserve. Even though we might not need these drugs, they sure make us feel good.

Everyone seems to have an ED-drug favorite -- sort of like beer (Miller vs. Bud) or trucks (Chevy vs. Ford). And maybe like with beer and trucks, these pills seem to work so well that many men don’t want to go without. To many guys in their mid-40s and older, the pharmaceutical ménage a trois is pretty much a rock-solid insurance policy against penile deflation due to age, anxiety, smoking (which constricts blood flow), diabetes, sleep deprivation, even (some say), alcohol and marijuana.

The Big Three are also touted to perk up limp members nailed by anti-depressants. Men who take drugs for stomach ulcers, high cholesterol, coronary artery disease, and high blood pressure (particularly diuretics) often have problems getting erections, but drug-makers say these penis-uppers can cure even the droopiest of dog tails. And if premature ejaculation hounds you, studies show these drugs can make you last longer. There’s more: Urologists say these pharmaceuticals can shorten the so-called refractory period, so you can come back sooner for more.

Where’d these powerful, popular drugs come from and how’d they jumpstart such a national craze?

Remember way back in 1998, when Viagra was launched as the world’s first drug to help get an erection? Viagra’s TV huckster was none other than 75-year-old Bob Dole, who broke all kinds of taboos by lecturing to millions of Americans that he was impotent from prostate cancer and that Viagra helped him have sex again. The image of Bob Dole having sex was bad enough, but the mention of impotence -- what man out there wanted to cop to that?