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From a masculinist scientific perspective, these actions align with female bodies as then imply an invasion of bodily space and better suit the complexities of reproduction (rather than the production for which men are rewarded in the public sphere). Female bodies are acted upon: penises are inserted, sperm is injected, eggs are implanted, and wombs are inflated. Meanwhile, Viagra is represented as requiring no accompanying “props” and appears-through ease and discretion-i-to take effect almost by divine right when compared with othet options. Swallowing a pill, it seems, has become so much a part of our society that it is considered noninvasive when, of course, it is invasive. It is important to point out, however, that the active chemical in Viagra-sildenafil citrite-does not work instantly (as does the injected or inserted alprostadil); desire is required and stimulation is recommended. I suggest that this delay in Viagra’s efficacy-coupled with the sexual scripts of passion and foreplay-s-can be construed by its users as a “natural” response. The variety of methods summarized here represents both invasive and noninvasive options. And although Viagra is certainly invasive, it is rendered almost neutral in these stories. One gets the impression that these alternatives were never desirable and yet, as they were once the only other medically sanctioned remedies, they had no shortage of users and benefits.P

LiterJry critic and philosopher Kenneth Burke suggests it is through “strategic I ambiguity” that the “debunker” combats opposing arguments (or, in this case, alternatives to Viagra) by discarding them overtly, only to advance the new argument covertly. His analogy) I think) is worth reproducing here: Matches may be used either to light our pipes or burn down our houses. And one can well understand why, if they were being used entirely for the purpose of burning down our houses, a thinker should arise to say: “Let us have no more matches.” By preventing the use, he [sic] could prevent the misuse. And then, if he still had occasion to light his pipe, he might make an altered recommeddation of this sort: “What we really need is lighters.” He might go on to show that matches are largely derived from tradition, whereas lighters are modern. And in our eagerness for the solution, we might be willing to meet the thinker ha1fway, failing thereby to note that lighters could be misused in quite the same Iway as matches were [emphasis original].2

So when we “light our pipes” with Viagra, as it were, rather ,than, for instance, a vacuum pump, we are thinking ofViagra as noninvasive (of both romance and the body). This is an ambiguous distinction at best linsofar as taking a pill is an act that has been rendered routine in this culture. The consequence of the myriad medicines we ingest unthinkingly is cause for concern. But Burke is suspicious of debunking generally. As he describes the process, the typical debunker constructs “a mode of argument that would, if carried out consistently, also knock the underpinnings from beneath his own

argument. ” Given the speed with which technology changes, it is no surprise that even Viagra (as Burke predicted) was being debunked by rival technologies.

John Leland of Newsweek points out: Others, though, are less sold on Viagra. Some doctors insist the future belongs to local medications, not a pill that circulates through the entire body. Ancj for all Viagra’s publicity, Pfizer’s research has not yet been through peer review. “They’ve presented the data in the most positive light,” says one top researcher, who is working on an alternative treatment [my emphasis] .

An impartial argument, then, questions the need to “correct” erbctile dysfunction (however defined) at all. The first theme in these news accounts is to sensationalize Viagra and to debunk the other, traditional therapies. This double strategy fails tq take into account the vast differences among these therapies regarding ease ?f acquisition, cost effectiveness, and most importantly, side effects. But the popularity of Viagra has also produced side effects of a different kind. Relational side effects often stem from the resurgence of (or potential for) sexual interest long since retired.