“The Globe Is Gaga for Viagra”
First, we should question the expectation that all couples need to main tain the sexual vigor of their youth - a vigor that is unabashedly masculine in its emphasis (both in therapeutic and practical arenas) on models of conquest and performance.
Second, we should critique the assumption that it is only the man in these relationships (who suffers from a lack of sexual ability) who must come to terms with what medical sociologist Kathy Charmaz calls “contingent personal identity, ” In the example above, note that the female partner is not assumed to have gone “flying out the door” in search of a capable lover when her husband was impotent. Overwhelmingly, the cost of erectile dysfunction to womenjin the relationship goes unexamined, unless it is coded within the frame of Viagra: a boon to a long passionless drought.ss And while cuddling is implied as the default substitute for impossible intercourse, no other forms of sexual play are considered in these articles. As Russell Watson’s Newsweek story “The Globe Is Gaga for Viagra” reminds us, “A poor lover plus Viagra does not make a good lover, but merely a poor lover with an erection.” Finally, despite the frequent use of the term “partner” - a descriptor that is used in the long - term committed relationships of both gay and straight couples - the articles quoted in this subsection refer exclusively tojheterosexual behavior, a tendency that will be examined more thoroughly tn the sub - section to follow.
Returning to the perpetuation of the mind/body split in the treatment of erectile dysfunction, the question must be asked - What is at stake Iwhen integrating the two (especially in a heterosexual model of relational tlynamics)? By acquiescing to an emergency room ideology of “treat ‘em and sfreet ‘em,” and accepting the biomedical solution to the putative sexual d1ysfunction within a relationship, the female partner enables the male partner to “save face,” but often at the expense of her own sexual needs and desines (or lack thereof). Within a relationship marked by traditional performances ofmasculine authority and feminine servility, it is the woman who feels the pressure to equalize the anxiety resulting from the compromised male ego. Writing about the experience of “first heterosex” (or perhaps, more colloquially, “losing virginity”), Janet Holland, Caroline Ramzanoglu, and Rachel Thomson suggest that it is through her participation in his performance [that] she is inducted to the world
of heterosexual sexuality, where she must learn to play by the masculine Irules of the game, or take the consequences of resistance …. Within this game, her sexual identity, subjectivity and desire are silent. To succeed as a woman, and to be rewarded, she must become proficient in supporting and satisfying masculine values and needs.
The woman’s complicity in the man’s performance is achieveb through silence. Her proficiency in supporting and satisfying his values (atid thereby demonstrating her success as a woman) is guaranteed by the biomedical endorsement and attributions of gender in the mind/body dualism. Something that “no pill will cure” is also subject to this gender Ґchotomy: none of the articles suggested that a man ordering Viagra might be concerned with intimacy dynamics.
The areas of relational communication I’ve addressed here ill’ustrate the ways in which Viagra’s benefits have been challenged by the popular press. The subtlety of taking a pill is an appealing antidote to the silence ind secrecy surrounding sexuality and its (presumed) impediments. Biomedicine’s embrace of pharmaceutical solutions reveals its advocacy of the mindybody split. The mind/body split not only fixes erectile dysfunction lin organic causes and normalizes the chemical solution, but also divides solutions along gendered lines, suggesting that men don’t require the cornmunidative therapy that women do. This divide has a profound affect on bothl individual partnerships and attitudes about gendered performances. These attitudes are discernible when men are quoted in these stories. Men in these articles - who speak anecdotally and metaphorically - reveal values and needs. Here I look at how masculine values and needs are portrayed in these news stories and how the masculine virtues of risk taking and sexual prowess are upheld.
