Hollywood sex is perfect. Noses don’t clash, the sheets are always clean, the lighting is ideal and the participants nimble, smooth-tongued and unlikely to make terrible faces when carried away.
Now we Brits are so desperate to emulate the sexual prowess of film characters that apparently Viagra prescriptions have risen because of it. A sociologist at Kent University, Frank Furedi, has said that images being received from Hollywood about what people should expect from sex have lead people to “expect the best”. There is no longer the sense of learning from experience, and sex has fundamentally changed.
He then went on to explain that a lot of research is starting to show Viagra is increasingly being used as a recreational drug to enhance performance. He said men use it to “overcome performance anxiety”.
In an article in The Telegraph, it was implied that the rise in Viagra prescriptions we have seen over the last couple of years is down to men wanting to be perfect for their partners.
Current government guidelines say that Viagra should only be prescribed on the NHS when someone has an underlying health condition which prevents them from achieving an erection or those experiencing severe stress as a result of being impotent.
Every night, it is estimated that 30,000 pills are taken by men needing help to achieve an erection. Over the last year, the cost of medicine to treat erectile dysfunction has risen by £11m, from £59 m to £70 m.