“I wish I knew then what I do now”
The use of architectural and mechanistic metaphors here does more than simply provide useful models for grasping the specifics of ED; they are also utilized rhetorically to create distance between the physiological and psychological approaches. In more than one article, Goldstein emphatically declares, “It’s all hydraulics!”
“The penis as a ‘tool,’” writes Peter F. Murphy, “makes explicit the association between male heterosexuality and the machine.” Murphy’s website Studs, Tools, and the Family Jewels examines the metaphors men live by as well as the shrewdness of discourse common among heterosexual males.
The penis as a device for performing a chore or doing a job is one metaphor that dominates the lexicon of male bonding. The idea of the penis as an instrument to accomplish something (usually penetration of a woman to allow a man to have a quick and easy orgasm), or as an implement to get a particular job done, pervades the way men think about their sexuality.
This points to another important meaning of the word “tool” - it is also used to describe those who blindly follow artificial standards. A tool here is an “implement” of oppression - a dupe, a stooge. A tool is somebody who, unthinkingly, does what he is told to do. If the penis is supposed to function when called upon to do so, then there is a clear hierarchy between a man and his penis. In these news stories, this hierarchy is maintained - both by patients and physicians - through the use of mechanistic metaphors. But it is in adolescence that this hierarchy is established.
In the discourse of erectile dysfunction, the benchmark for healthy sexual response is based on recollections of youth and/or early relationship activity. From the “I wish I knew then what I do now” department comes the idealization of youthful sexuality, as evidenced by comments made by those for whom Viagra has worked successfully. “I’m 60 years old but I think I’m 16″73 and “It’s time for me to be a stud again”74 are two examples of how the recovery of erectile function is equated with reminiscences of a glorious sexual past.
It is has been argued that women experience distinct, biological moments that punctuate the course of their lives whereas men do not. Whether or not these moments are absent for men, women’s biological experiences are imbued with cultural significance; menarche, menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause not only mark time in a woman’s adulthood but are also indicative of sexual readiness, availability, and outcome.Zf That is, in a culture of male dominance, women’s bodies are marked. With regard to men’s bodies, no matching reproductive indicator is available, nor is there an expectation of changing function. Once boys reach puberty and begin to experience erections and produce sperm, science tells us there is little variation on sexual physiology until death - at least nothing as dramatic as pregnancy, nor as culturally loaded.
