In the ten years since Viagra was developed it has helped millions of men around the world. For many years erectile dysfunction problems were put down to psychological problems. It is only since the advent of Viagra that scientists have realised that nearly ninety per cent of impotence problems are a direct result of physiological problems, specifically the supply of blood to the penis. Until a treatment for erectile dysfunction became readily available, that is to say Viagra; there was no way of ascertaining the percentage of psychological cases and those that were physiological. This is not to say that men who have difficulty obtaining or maintaining an erection do not incur psychological problems.
It is not surprising that the inability to achieve an erection causes men to be insecure. We live in a society dominated by images of men with rippling, muscular torsos and underwear advertisements that sport men with unfeasibly large bulges. One only needs to look at the new Armani underwear advertisements featuring an oiled up David Beckham to see this trend in full swing. This is not to say that the idealised and virile male form is a modern phenomenon. Look at Michelangelo’s David or much earlier statues from Ancient Greece and Rome and there abound paintings and sculptures of such specimens.
Now, according to a report published in The Irish Independent this week, men are being made to feel even more insecure and this time the problem is much closer to home. Mary O’Connor, Ireland’s ‘leading psychosexual therapist’ has said that predatory young women are destroying the confidence of Ireland’s young men by expecting them to perform ‘on demand’. Although it might sound like something out of a 1970’s American cult movie it seems that more and more young men are turning to the blue pill as the means by which they can satisfy these demands.
Apparently many young men, particularly those in their early twenties, feel intimidated by the pressure placed upon them by women and feel it necessary to have Viagra available to help them to cope with it. It hardly seems conceivable that Viagra, which was originally developed as a treatment for angina, has also become a way of young men dealing with the sexual demands of voracious young women demanding instant gratification. Perhaps men need to form their own liberation movement to readdress the balance but we do not hear many complaining about the demands placed on them!