Viagra “works”
Kenneth Burke explains how authorities impress us with their wisdom. In the case of Viagra these authorities are sanctioned by virtue of their technoscientific expertise. As their wisdom becomes social stock knowledge through the efficiency of the mainstream press, we become susceptible to guilty feelings when we defy its advantages. Many men continuously assert their sense of masculine identity through overt and covert displays of sexuality. So when erectile dysfunction threatens this marker of masculinity and there is a ready antidote that fulfills all the requirements of a quick - fix, high - tech society, it is no wonder that men feel compelled to try it. Furthermore, the risk of death does nothing to assuage this compulsion. Men may be sacrificing their mortality, but not their status in the hierarchy.U? After all, there is probably no physical demise more hegemonically masculine than a heart attack.
Pfizer markets Viagra as a treatment for erectile dysfunction. By what ever means physicians arrive at the definition of erectile dysfunction, ns there is no doubt that the target market for its treatment (and the financial success of that treatment) rests in the fifty - plus age group of American males - the demographic cohort most at risk for heart ailments stemming from cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure. What is more, in its roll call of the organic causes of erectile dysfunction, Pfizer specifically names the drugs that are prescribed to treat high blood pressure and heart disease as contributing “to a man’s inability to get and keep an erection”Il9 and recommends Viagra as a treatment. So Ian Osterloh’s claim that “we thought [heart and high blood pressure patients] wouldn’t be thinking about sex” rings hollow; Pfizer both anticipated an interest in sex among men with high blood pressure and heart disease and systematically kept such men from its clinical trials.
Here, I’d like to turn to a discussion of risk and redemption. Pfizer Pharmaceuticals (Brand Viagra manufacturer) claims that it expected more deaths. But why? What is it about sex that drives thousands (if not millions) of American men to compromise their health, whether by ingesting a pill or through physical exertion? The answer, again, may be found among James Doyle’s five themes of American masculinity. Socialization emphasizes both virility and achievement as imperatives for the performance of masculinity. “Be sexual,” “Be aggressive,” and “Be successful” all come into play here. In childhood, boys are rarely reprimanded for risky behavior; in fact, risk - taking behavior among young males is rewarded by peers, if not by parents. Organized sports - particularly football 12 I - often intensify the performance of risk taking and aggression, as physical training emphasizes strength, the endurance of pain, and, above all, winning. This adolescent socialization, of course, becomes part and parcel of adult masculine socialization, albeit more subtly. Viagra “works” on several levels because it provides men with an assertive (or active) role in their treatment and, as it is advertised in the popular press, this treatment promises success. Most importantly, it does so without compromising a man’s status in his social hierarchy. The way in which these news stories address the issue of death calls attention to the fact that death is always big news. This is not surprising. No matter what the context or circumstanceswhether the issue is an airplane crash, disease, or catastrophe - the drama of death is exhaustively narrated and examined in the media. And after scenes have been created and recreated, shock has been expressed and acknowledged, and the aggrieved have been listened to and consoled, the question of blame surfaces and demands a response.
Some articles blame Pfizer and others blame people. Pfizer is drawn as a company that is irresponsible: in testing Viagra, in ignoring the myriad health problems of the drug’s target market, and in pressuring the FDA in the interest of profit and stock prices. People are blamed for not taking the drug as directed, for being out of the hegemonic masculine loop, for wanting better sex and sensory experiences, and for performing sex irresponsibly /illegitimately. Most apparent in these reports that attempt to make sense of fault is that Pfizer, as much as the media doing the reporting, exculpates itself and directs blame toward the users of its drug.
With regard to these legitimized risks of Viagra, there is more to be revealed. Data in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicated that 564 Viagra - related deaths had been reported through July 8, 1999 - a mere fourteen months after Viagra was approved by the FDA.122 And in January 2003, researchers at the University of Chicago discovered how some of those deaths were not the simple result of combining Viagra with contraindicated nitrates, but rather, from unexpected platelet clumping” Inexplicably, none of the news sources considered here reported these findings.
Clearly, as evidenced by the comments from spokespersons dismissing the risks of its product, Pfizer has demonstrated its commitment to profits, rather than any of the altruistic motives some of its literature boasts. For Pfizer, these deaths signify an embarrassment more than a legitimate hazard for which it might be responsible. Dead men tell no tales. Newsweek’s John Leland writes, “To atone, let us now honor the Viagra 130, those brave men who died before they could fulfill the drug’s true promise: to spew intimate details from the boudoir, preferably in public, even in front of the kids. ”
In the final section of this post, I look at how the rhetoric of the social “costs” ofViagra continues in a larger institutional structure. The fifth major theme of the news stories I examine is the economic impact of Viagra on a societal scale.
