Off the Record

Viagra's 10th anniversary

I head on the news today that it is the 10th anniversary of Viagra, the little blue pill that made "erectile disfunction" a household phrase. Before Viagra, erectile disfunction, or male impotence, was something nobody except comedians talked about. Now we have an endless stream of TV commercials about Viagra and similar products, from a bunch of guys with guitars sitting around and singing "Viva, Viagra" (if Elvis were alive today, I bet he'd be a customer), to Smiling Bob and his new-found confidence. Even Sen. Bob Dole did a Viagra ad.

It is also the tenth anniversary of the Viagra joke (My favorite: What do you get if you combine Viagra and Rogaine? Don King's hairdo!) and the tenth anniversary of the most inescapable form of e-mail spam.

Somehow, I liked it better when men suffered in silence.