From "The Soft Sell/The health-care brand Hims wants to leverage young men’s anxiety over erections and hair loss into a multibillion-dollar empire" (NY Magazine). The illustration at the link is hilarious.
"Some of my friends were dismissive of the idea that men under 40 were using sildenafil for anything other than fun. 'This is about young guys in gamer chairs taking a pill and jerking off,' one friend in his early 30s said. 'I’m sure you’ll come up with some empathic bullshit about how being a man is complicated now, but that’s what your article is actually about: jerking off.'... For young, single straight men, especially those in their 20s, sex... often meant isolated encounters with women they didn’t really know.... By now, the more evolved guys had realized that sex need not be a story whose climax was their own orgasm, but what hadn’t changed was the notion that men should be able to have sex at the drop of a hat, while women required more factors to align — an emotional connection, a lack of stress, a feeling of security. A man might fear hurting a woman’s feelings if he didn’t instantly respond to her physically, and there was no cultural script to ease that tension."
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22 comments:
Our health care industry is sick and broken. They are telling people to get fat and old and like it.
The most prescribed class of drug in this country is Statins. Go look at what they actually do and look at what cholesterol actually does in the body and how much cholesterol actually comes from your diet.
There is this counter culture of medicine available now. It actually tries to make men's lives better.
This article is just an attack by the mob on a competitor.
Well-written story and yes, a funny illustration.
When we first moved to Japan, we had dinner with a Japanese woman who my wife knew from her college network.
I asked her why whisky in Japan was so cheap and wine was so expensive (true).
She said two things in Japan are cheap...whisky and Viagra.
I asked her why that was...
'Because old men run Japan, and old men like whisky and Viagra.'
: )
Reminds me of a recent comment I made to a different post to the effect that a civilization-ending apocalypse may be the only thing that can save us from these tiresome people who have way too much time on their hands? Get to work at something that helps society.
Wisdom of "old" age is recognizing that the body just doesn't work as it used to, and that you don't have to fix that, you only have to adapt to it.
Is it any wonder women are increasingly sterilizing themselves before having any children at all. Who would want to procreate with today's younger men?
"Wisdom of "old" age is recognizing that the body just doesn't work as it used to..."
I would say, from a position of old age, that the condition of your body is specific to you, so don't just saying I'm getting old, so I must have the usual decline and dysfunction. Do the best that you can with the body you have. Every day, whatever you do, you are contributing to what will be your body in the future. That should caution against any drug use. What would be the best way to create the sexuality of that future you. It's very unlikely to be drugs that amp up your performance in the now!
I've mentioned it before in Althouse comments but will restate it. A well-known biologist privately said that a number of colleagues hypothesize that erectile dysfunction, decreased sperm counts, transgenderism, etc are likely influenced to the introduction of growth hormones in livestock...but you'll never get a grant to set up a controlled study. The agricultural lobbyists and the gender activists will not allow this type of research.
We've made men so cautious about being men, I'm not surprised this generation finds itself reaching for pills to help them have an erection. I feel so lucky having lived my younger years in the times I did.
This is interesting though. I listen to a chunk of talk radio- sports talk, political talk, + podcasts. And I've been noticing for the last year or so just how many ads there are for Hims, or Roman, or Rex MD- all of which specialize in mens pills- mainly for ED. The ads are numerous and I'm sure costly. But I suspect they are blown away by order volume.
As a aside, talking to an old college buddy the other day, we both agreed that had we had Tinder when we were of college age, we'd be dead. Maybe the young guys are just trying to keep up with market demand.
Probably it's only biological men unless there have been developments.
That's wierd. From the Viagra ads on TV, I thought erectile disfunction came from swinging a golf club.
"The Hims Man could order sildenafil while waiting in line for Sweetgreen, changing in the Equinox locker room, obtaining knitwear on Mr Porter...", pretty much describes a useless twat!
Viagra (or whatever it was called then) was originally prescribed for certain heart disorders.
One of the funniest days of my life was when a friend described in glorious detail his experience in the emergency room when he arrived with an erection that wouldn't go away.
My son, the target demographic of this marketing, these products, replied to the article with, "Der ewige product is the goal." Yes, selling a thing that works if and only if the buyers keep buying more forever is indeed a marketing success, especially if you can start the buyers' purchases at an early age. And it is different from an essential item such as food.
Guys needing Rogaine in their thirties is one thing but Viagra? I could see that for the small percent of men in that age cohort having serious medical conditions Viagra could be needed. But a healthy guy? A guy in that age cohort is more likely to sprout wood at an inappropriate time than need the Viagra.
A new term for old age is "weathering." I like it. It calls up images of bits falling off which is the actual, detailed experience of aging. Once you could do this action quickly, now you are slower - and slower. Once you could eat this amount of spicey food, now it's less. One day you'll be like a western butte or mesa, like Shiprock with your solid core standing upright and all around the base a huge rim of chips - things lost along the way. It isn't all weathering. You actually do know better than those young whipper-snappers where actions take you in the long run because you've run the long run. Pour in drugs of any kind when you are in your 20's, you will regret it forty years later. Your earliest choices, which you think are experiments, set around you like concrete. If you don't have children there will be no social security and no welfare state when you are old. I wish very much that the younger generation understood this last fact.
I got my doctors to write proscriptions for generic Viagra and a testosterone initiator to help jack up my recovery for severe heart failure several years ago. There are peer reviewed papers showing it might or might not help. Ate the "T" drug at 1/2 of recommended, the Viagra at 10mg/day, 5days/week while progressively increasing my cardiovascular exercise routine. Did the drugs for ~8-months until my ejection fraction % went to the top of the green. I did about a 2-month taper off while upping cardio.
Once the ticker got strong, it's easier to stay fit, which helps generate vitamin T naturally. It's the opposite of a viscous cycle where life feels like running through molasses.
undiagnosed epidemic of erectile dysfunction
This has got to be trolling.
"The Soft Sell..." I see what they did there...
"Guys needing Rogaine in their thirties is one thing but Viagra? "
I blame porn, these kids are exposed from God knows what age to video of male performers, who are probably taking drugs, performing at a superhuman level, and women professing to love it and beg for more.
But when I read these kinds of articles, it becomes less of a mystery why younger women are interested in old coots like myself.
'Guys needing Rogaine in their thirties is one thing but Viagra?'
As Indiana Jones famously said, 'It's not the years, it's the mileage.'
I took Viagra in my early 40's.
I have not needed it since I divorced my wife.
In my early 40's.
I go through one of these companies for Finasteride. (I get the Kirkland Select version of Rogaine.) I don't have an HMO anymore so a doctor visit costs a lot more than the pre-2010 $10 copay. I had to take time off work to pay a doctor $100 once or twice a year to look at my head so I could continue to buy a product I'd been using since 2006. (No doctor ever warned me about the potential side effects, they just took my money and write the script.) After that I got to deal with the joy of being charged brand name prices for the generic product until I pressured the pharmacist to find a coupon that brings the cost down to $25 a month. Then I found Keeps, filled out a questionnaire, took a few pictures of my hairline, and got the same product without any hassle for the same price. I recently switched to Roman because Keeps raised their prices. Same process. No pain. I get that their marketing to the younger crowd is crass but for my needs it's a nice option to have.
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