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Sexualities
DOI: 10.1177/1363460704044803
2004; 7; 303Sexualities
Meika Loe
Sex and the Senior Woman: Pleasure and Danger in the Viagra Era
http://sexualities.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/3/303
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Abstract This article reveals women aged 67 to 86 making sense
of sexuality in the Viagra era. Drawing from interviews, survey
data and content analysis of newspaper advice columns, I argue
that senior women use Viagra as a vehicle to discuss and critique
sexualized masculinity, sexualized culture, sexual obligation in
marriage, and sexual health and pleasure. This data complicates
and fills out existing qualitative research on aging and sexuality,
while rejecting popular assumptions that the elderly are asexual.
These women use Viagra to discuss pleasure and danger in their
lives, to tell sexual stories, to build community, to critique
social institutions, and even to promote social change in
the 21st century.
Keywords aging, masculinity, sexuality, social institutions, Viagra,
women
Meika Loe
Colgate University, USA
Sex and the Senior Woman: Pleasure
and Danger in the Viagra Era1
In 1997, Newsweek ran a cover story introducing a new pill for impotence
that was soon to be approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration).2
Soon afterwards, letters to the editor, many penned by women,
expressed concern about the arrival of this new drug, Viagra. One letter
read, `We don't need more virile senior male citizens thinking they are
virile teenagers. We have enough of that already. What about birth control
for men, thaťs what we really want!'3 What seemed like a lone critical voice
on Viagra in 1997 was joined by many in the years to come. Many of these
letters, addressed to magazine editors and newspaper advice columnists, it
turns out, were written by senior women.
Women's perspectives and opinions are largely absent when it comes to
the Viagra phenomenon. Sex is still seen as male terrain, with women silent
partners at best.4 In part, this silence is due to the equating of `erectile
dysfunction' with heterosexual masculinity and male responsibility, leaving
Article
Sexualities Copyright  2004 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
Vol 7(3): 303­326 DOI: 10.1177/1363460704044803
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little room for women's experiences. But by leaving women out of the
picture, we are only seeing half the story. Several months after Viagra's
debut in the United States, I set out to discover how women have been
affected by erectile dysfunction and Viagra. In order to find out I talked
with some of the wives and partners of senior Viagra users, as well as
women who have no direct relationship with the drug. These senior
women had different experiences with and opinions about Viagra, and
each had important, and often surprising, things to say about sexuality in
the Viagra era. Their comments shed light on how elderly women view
sex and pleasure, and whether they would like to have a `female Viagra'
pill.5 Senior women discuss Viagra in terms of their own pleasure and
danger, as well as their partners' and, rather than confirming stereotypes
about masculinity, they often question social expectations related to
gender, sexuality, marriage and health. Most importantly, the introduction
of Viagra seems to have provided senior women with a rare opportunity
and permission to discuss their sex lives.
Methods
I met these senior women through two senior citizen organizations in
southern California: a singles social club and a seniors-only summer
school.6 I surveyed about 80 male and female seniors, 38 of whom were
women and, of that group, I conducted eight follow-up in-depth interviews
by phone. These women, Agnus, Annette, Bette, Doris, Hilda,
Nora, Pauline, and Sally are the focus of this article, coupled with anonymous
survey data. 7 At the time of the interview, they ranged in age from
67 to 86 years of age. Most were living either in Florida or southern California,
approximately half were Jewish, and all were white, heterosexual,
middle or upper middle class American citizens. What they all had in
common was an interest in discussing Viagra. They all had different
relationships to Viagra: four had partners who had tried Viagra, others had
friends who used the product, and a couple only knew of Viagra through
news reporting or conversations with friends. Importantly, all but Bette,
who was divorced, were widows. At the time of our conversations, Bette
and Doris were actively dating, while the others were not.
In open-ended conversation phone interviews, I asked senior women to
discuss what the availability of Viagra meant for women, men, and society
at large at the turn of the century. Not once did I ask a question about
sexuality. Despite this, my questions about Viagra were seen as invitations
to discuss, critique, and construct sexual desire, health, obligation, gender
roles, and culture. Thus, Viagra provided me with a non-threatening entrée
into women's sexual lives and stories, something I had not anticipated
when I set out to collect women's perspectives on Viagra.8 Additionally,
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this article charts women's more public Viagra-related sexual storytelling
through a small purposive sample of Dear Abby and Ann Landers advice
columns and various news reports found through focused internet
searches. Secondary sources such as advice columns yield crucial information
about the social construction of personal problems and counsel.9
The `sexual stories' I collected through advice columns and interviews
are personal experience narratives around Viagra use, which may or may
not elicit stories about intimacy (Plummer, 1995: 7). For example, Viagra
narratives reveal just as much about aging, science and technology, health
and medicine, and gender, as they reveal about sex.10 As sexual stories,
they `flow from the culture and back into iť; thus they are major resources
for comprehending a culture and its dynamics, values and changes
(Plummer, 1995: 176). Additionally, these stories take the form of `claimsmaking'
in the sense that these women are making claims, constructing
grievances, and locating sexuality within a matrix of social problems they
take issue with (Spector and Kitsuse, 1977).
In the tradition of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), this
article is organized around common themes that naturally emerged
through interviewing and data analysis, rather than pre-selected ideas.
Thus, this article explores and analyzes senior women making sense of
sexuality in the light of the Viagra phenomenon. It is organized around
four recurrent themes that senior women named as salient in the Viagra
era: (1) women's sexual health and pleasure, (2) sexual obligation in
marriage, (3) sexualized masculinity and (4) sexualized culture. First, a
review of existing quantitative and qualitative data on sexuality and aging
is helpful to further place these women within a social context.
Pleasure and danger
Senior women's willingness to speak openly about sex is a marked difference
from years past. In fact, the idea that senior women are having sex,
much less talking about it, cannot be divorced from the legacy and gains
of women's movements. Two decades ago, two books were published that
changed how most sexuality scholars understood women's sexuality:
Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality (Snitow et al., 1983), and Pleasure
and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality (Vance, 1984). These volumes
marked a complex historical moment in women's lives and feminist
organization, representing themes and sentiments that existed at a controversial
feminist conference held at Barnard College in 1982.11 The
conference and ensuing volumes symbolized a growing discussion about
the importance of women's sexuality, empowerment and safety as important
personal and political goals during late `second wave' feminist organization,
gelling for many the idea that women's experiences of sexuality can
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be both dangerous and empowering. These themes are clearly reflected in
my senior informants' stories.
Unfortunately, the assumption that sexuality declines and disappears
with age has led to gaps and silences in the few landmark national sexuality
studies that have been conducted (Goodfellow, 2004).12 Research by
Kinsey in the 1950s and Masters and Johnson in the late 1960s are
examples of such negligence as there is little to be learned in these studies
about senior sex (Levy, 1994). 13 Such assumptions about lack of sex may
even have informed the latest Sex in America survey (Michael et al., 1994)
which included only those aged 18 to 59. One notable exception came in
1976 with Shere Hite's The Hite Report on Female Sexuality that received
questionnaire responses from women aged 14 to 78. According to Hite,
one of the major findings was that age is not a factor in female sexuality,
or in other words, `Older women are NOT less sexual than younger
women ­ and they are often more sexuaľ (Hite, 1994: 29).
Thanks in part to Viagra and Bob Dole,14 seniors' active sexual lives are
becoming more visible, legitimate, and accepted by American society.
A 1999 article in Time International summed it all up in its title; `Old
Goats and their Libidos: Ever Since Bobby Dole Did that Viagra Ad, The
Senior Class Has Been Acting Up' (Morrow, 1999: 78). But several of my
interview subjects were eager to point out that seniors were sexually active
prior to the Viagra era. As Agnus put it,
These days seniors are still falling in love and feeling young and sexually active
again. Is this new? Probably not. It has probably been the case for some time
now, but people didn't talk about it. (Agnus, 67)
Understandably, this exposure is creating some discomfort, but it also
offers some welcome changes in social expectations. It is in the spirit of
this newly expanded dialogue and the new visibility of the sexual senior,
that Modern Maturity Magazine, the official magazine of the American
Association of Retired People (AARP), commissioned a report on the sex
lives of seniors (Jacoby, 1999).15 This `Exclusive Post-Viagra Survey
Reporť was a `study of the sexual attitudes and practices of Americans 45
and older in the first nationwide inquiry into midlife and old age'. In brief,
their findings revealed that `At every age, sex seems to hold greater importance
for men than women. According to this survey, nearly 60% of men ­
but only about 35% of women ­ say sexual activity is important to their
overall quality of life'. Other important results with relevance for this study
include: 70 per cent of baby boomers and seniors with regular partners
have sex at least once or twice a month; 5 per cent of men 75 and older,
and more than 35 per cent of women in that age group say they would be
quite happy if they never had sex again; among women in their 40s and
50s, only 9 per cent are sanguine about such a prospect. Additionally, the
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survey found that for seniors, a major `partner gap' exists, revealing that
more men than women have partners, and over half of the women above
60 are alone (Jacoby, 1999).16
These data provide a larger context for understanding the voices of
senior women in this article. For example, seven of the eight seniors I
interviewed are widows reflecting on what Modern Maturity calls `the end
of their sexual lives with the loss of husbands' (Jacoby, 1999, 45), and, I
would add, the potential for future sexual relationships. Furthermore, the
fact that many senior women (35%) say that sex is not that important to
them as well as the same percentage claiming that they would be content
never to have sex again is corroborated in letter after letter to advice
columnists since Viagra's debut. That said, in the interviews that follow,
some of the senior women directly contradict this, in fact claiming that it
is the men who cannot keep up with their appetites. Women's sexualities
are complicated, and context-dependent. Many of these women came of
age during a period when women were not supposed to concern themselves
with sexual gratification (and men were not supposed to be overly
concerned with their wives' pleasure), sex for them was officially for
making babies. More specifically, those in their 60s confronted a very
different sexual and social climate, having been born in the 1940s and
coming of age in the era of birth control, for example, than those currently
in their 80s, who were born in the 1920s depression era and came of age
during the Second World War, amidst more restrictive norms and attitudes.
For many of these women, seeing their daughters and granddaughters
come of age at a time when birth control and Viagra use are
normalized allows them to redefine, and perhaps explore sexuality in new
ways. Comments that follow reveal much about women's sexuality as well
as their sense of sexual pleasure and danger.
Women's sexual health and pleasure
For the senior women I spoke with, Bob Dole's erectile dysfunction was
not the only Viagra story that existed. The effects of Viagra were not solely
about men and their sexual lives. Viagra was also a rare opportunity to
make sense of their own sexual desires, pleasures, fears, and selves, many
times in relation to the Viagra man. For many of the women I spoke with,
then, Viagra proved to be an entrée into understanding and discussing
their own sexual health.
Bette, an upbeat 69 year old, commented that sexual activity is crucial
for overall health:
It is important, sex is. You see kitty cats and they are all fat and you know they
are not having sex. Really. And iťs the same with people. It is a really good
calorie burner. My doctor told me to see my gynecologist about Viagra for
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women. I would, but my SO [significant other] says I don't need a thing. Iťs
chemistry that turns me on, and maybe it takes me longer than when I was
younger, but then again, iťs all between our ears, isn't it? (Bette, 69)
For many, Viagra and sexual health are viewed in the context of aging,
as in Bette's comment here, where she compares sexuality now to when
she was younger. For senior women, like men, Viagra may represent the
elusive pursuit of youth. One woman responded to my question, `How
has Viagra changed your life?' with, `It has allowed us to enjoy sex again
­ makes us mentally feel younger'. Here sexuality is equated with youth,
reminiscent of the ways in which male consumers of the drug can construct
Viagra as a fountain of youth pill, enabling them to `feel 18 again'. In
contrast, very few of the women I spoke with longed to return to the sexuality
of their teenage years. While some would just as soon forget about
their sexual pasts, Bette and Pauline volunteer that their `sexual prime' was
post-menopause:
With men they say the peak is at 19 and after that they go downhill . . . I think
42 was my sexual prime. Some women say that the menopause is terrible, but
I think it was great ­ not having to worry about pregnancy, just STDs [sexually
transmitted diseases]. (Bette, 69)
Well, menopause made sex less risky for me, and I didn't have to put a diaphragm
in every night or interrupt sex for that. The risks were much less, which made
it more enjoyable. (Pauline, 81)
Several senior women volunteered that they had been feeling `sexual urges'
in recent years. But for Bette and Nora, this desire is mitigated by concerns
with appearing `oversexeď or sexual in the context of widowhood, or by
frustration with finding a willing and able sexual partner in one's age group.
I was appalled that six weeks after my husband died somebody would want to
kiss me or I might want to respond because I don't think truthfully that I was
what I would call an oversexed woman. I had sexual urges but I never initiated
lovemaking too much. And . . . what should I say? I have a friend who had to
have a man. Not to sit across a table. But just had to have a man. She needed
sex very desperately. It was part of her life to a large extent, without being a
nymphomaniac she just needed a man. Thaťs fine but I never had that intense
urge because for me there were far more important things in a man than whether
or not he could ejaculate. So iťs chocolate and vanilla or strawberry and lemon,
who knows? (Nora, 74)
I know that my [male] friend can't take Viagra for health reasons and he's so
handsome. He wants all of the young women, and the young women want sex.
I'm not trying to be horrible, I think it is frustrating as a young woman to want
it and be excited and then frustrated. And vibrators are not the same as men.
Right? . . . Each person is their own person. But when a woman needs a man,
a vibrator just won't do. She wants companionship. And cuddling. And
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cuddling gets you hot and bothered sometimes. So you need a man there.
(Bette, 69)
Bette implies that a relationship based on cuddling or self-pleasure with
a vibrator is not enough. For her, Viagra may be necessary because sometimes
`you need a man', not a surrogate. But actually finding a male
partner may be difficult with a `partner gap' that leaves four out of five
women 75 and older without partners (Jacoby, 1999: 45), combined with
social trends that lead older men to want to date younger women.
Doris, a witty, practical, sexually active 86-year old, is similarly vocal
about her sexual desires as well as her concerns about the lack of potential
sexual partners in her age group. For Doris, men are not necessarily in
short supply, but healthy male sexual partners are. In her comments, given
here, Doris describes her desire to have a sexual relationship at her age, as
opposed to the platonic arrangements she sees her friends having.
Bear in mind that I am 86 years old, most of my friends are contemporaries.
Most felt that [Viagra] was going to be a real nuisance for the ones who were
still dating men, and now would have to deal with this new sexual situation that
would be part of their relationship. In many cases, they had a `nice' friendship
with men that did not include sex, and as far as they were concerned wanted it
to remain that way. They don't seem to be concerned with the health hazards
involving sex with men who were dating other women as well as them . . . just
not interested in sex. I was not one of these. I am interested in sex under certain
conditions. Clean bill of health is my number-one priority. Protection is right up
there with number one, and I don't care if it does sound clinical . . . thaťs the
world I live in. And I have to say that most of the men I have met have been
inadequate in performance, so my conditions didn't either enhance or hinder
the act . . . I have about given up on the whole thing . . . not worth the effort
. . . at least at the moment. I am satisfied to have someone for company at
movies, restaurants, concerts, short trips, etc. I find that the older I get, the less
sex has to do with my happiness. And since I am financially independent, I really
do not need anyone living with me, I can manage my daily life very well, and
doing `wifely' things is not something I would care to do. If things get to be
desperate, there is always a vibrator, which is ready to `go', providing the batteries
are new. Who could ask for more? (Doris, 86, emphasis added)
Unfortunately, Doris's pursuit of pleasure has been thwarted by male
partners she has had that cannot `perform', leading her to give up on
finding a sexual partner, and turning instead to her vibrator for pleasure.
I have gone through at least six men in the past 13 years since my husband died.
The first one talked nothing but sex, and he was certainly handsome, and
thought his penis was the most glorious work of art ever created. With a lot of
work, we could manage to get it to stand up for a few minutes, but when it
came to actually performing, it would collapse at the thought of what it was
expected to do. I have a TV in the bedroom, so we got to see a lot of late night
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TV before going to sleep. Number Two was full of ambition, but impotent in
every sense of the word. Also alcoholic, which could explain the impotency. The
third man lasted for almost three years, with no sex at all. By that time I had
decided that it really wasn't my problem, it was theirs . . . and a friendship was
just as good as anything else, since we had other interests in common. And thaťs
the way it has been ever since. I am no longer interested in relationships
(whatever that is).
Perhaps these comments of sexual dissatisfaction are one reason we
never heard from the likes of Elizabeth Dole and the other sexually frustrated
partners of senior men. This is the side of the story that Pfizer does
not talk about ­ women's desire for sex and men's inability to respond
positively to these desires. These comments show the other side of
impotency, that is, the sexual frustration for women. Again contrary to the
ideas about sex that we are used to hearing, these women appear to be the
sexual initiators in these relationships.
At the time of these interviews, many articles in women's and mainstream
magazines had reported on the search for a `female Viagra'. Such
articles quoted primarily baby boomer women saying, `If men have Viagra,
women need something too.' In this context, I asked the senior women I
spoke with if they had heard of such efforts to develop a Viagra-like
product for women. More than several claimed that such a product could
be promising in helping women achieve sexual pleasure.
I do believe that sex is important to have an adequate quality of life. I personally
miss the affection and companionship. But I would take a pill to be able to
enjoy sex more because my medications may diminish sexual drive. See, life has
many aspects and you don't ignore one that will give you pleasure. If I found
the right person, I'd try a pill. But I'm probably all dried up and squinched
together so I'd have to find a doctor to help me [laughing]. (Pauline, 81)
You know, my doctor said jokingly that there's a Viagra for women. And then
when I said, `Where do I get it?' he got very embarrassed. I said `How did you
hear about it?' He said some women's magazine. He's a Chinese doctor. But
he read about it somewhere . . . I don't know what it is, but I would consider
using Viagra even though my SO [significant other] says I don't need it. I can't
explain it. It would just make me a bit hotter, I think. (Bette, 69)
Both Pauline and Bette make it clear that sexual satisfaction is something
that they would definitely enjoy and that both would be interested in
taking such a pill. Though, in the following conversation I had with Hilda,
it is clear that her interest in such a drug is not necessarily tied to her age,
but is in response to her life-long lack of fulfillment with her sex life.
ML: Have you heard about women taking Viagra?
H: I've heard of it. I think iťs a good idea. You know, if I had a partner, I
think I might have taken it. Because we had a wonderful marriage, but
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not a wonderful sex life. It was okay. But the ecstasy that people talk about
­ I have never experienced it . . . I don't think he woulďve liked me doing
that [taking a pill] . . . At this point in my life, I don't know if I'd chance
it. I'm 80, and I don't want to hasten my, you know. So I might think
twice about it.
ML: What would be your ideal drug?
H: I'd want to experience what I've read about. The ecstasy.
ML: Do you mean libido? Orgasm?
H: Yes. I have two friends who make reference to the fact that they have had
wonderful sex lives. They are both widows. And both very unusual for
my generation since they've had more than one partner. One told me that
she never experienced with her husband what she had with another man.
So maybe some guys do it better than others. I wouldn't know ­ I've only
had one. And this is the way I'm going to finish. (Hilda, 80)
Hilda's coments illustrate one of the key differences between male and
female desire for Viagra, or a Viagra-like drug: while men may need the
drug to help them continue their sexual pleasure, women may want the
drug to discover theirs for the first time. In a positive sense, then, the
public discussions of Viagra clearly have enabled some women to openly
discuss their sex lives, for better or worse, and to ask their own doctors for
solutions. Still, these women are also aware that sexuality exists in relation
to the medication they and their partners take (with a growing list of side
effects that require other medications to balance them out), and that there
are often trade-offs between sex and health. Particularly for Hilda, the
promise of sexual fulfillment and enhancement is tempered by the risk of
`chancing iť, or `hastening' death, an issue that male consumers, particularly
those with Viagra risk factors, must negotiate as well. Hilda and
Pauline conflate sexual hopes with health risks, unable to separate the two.
For them, sexuality occurs against a backdrop of continuous aging and
health concerns. Additionally, this bleeding together of promise and risk
discourses is relatively common, revealing women's confusions about what
Viagra can offer in the realms of sexuality, health, and aging.17 Finally, for
Bette and Hilda, consumption of a Viagra-like product would take place
in the context of a relationship, where husbands or boyfriends may `disapprove',
clearly complicating and constraining their choices.
While some of the women discussed fears for their own health in relation
to a Viagra-like drug, they clearly had concerns about men and Viagra. In
the next extracts, Nora and Doris evaluate the health risks for male Viagra
users in the light of what they view as male desire for potency:
You have to be so careful with meds because of the side-effects. Especially with
the Viagra, I understand that if men are on nitrates, they can't take it. Who would
want a man to have a heart-attack in the middle of enjoying sex? (Nora, 74)
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As for my thoughts about taking medication for sexual prowess, I can see that
it might be a useful tool for younger people with a problem. As for older men,
especially with Viagra, which has a spotty medical history at best, with heart
attacks and sudden death as some of the side effects, I think it is unacceptable.
My own feeling is that it is not all that safe, and if I were a man I would not
take it. It was not originally invented for this use anyway . . . I think it was for
hypertension or something . . . Having said that, I also know that some men
would risk anything to prove how manly they are. (Doris, 86)
Like most Americans, Nora and Doris have been exposed to media
reports warning that if taken in the wrong circumstances, Viagra can be
fatal.18 Despite such warnings, each woman balances potential for physical
risk with potential for masculine potency, something they felt their
husbands greatly desired. Nora and Doris find this a dangerous balancing
act with ramifications for men and women. Nora is concerned about
having a male partner die during lovemaking. Doris also highlights the
risks for older men, but concedes that `some men would risk anything to
prove how manly they are'.
While Viagra encourages discussions of individual health, it may also
prove to be a risk to the health of senior communities. For example, there
has been much recent concern about increased sexual activity among older
people leading to the spread of HIV in senior communities.19 Because of
the new-found attention on sexually active seniors, and recently launched
`preventative' efforts, I was not surprised to find seniors discussing the
spread of HIV in their communities. The following extract is from a largegroup
discussion between a group of senior women (SW) from Florida
enrolled in a summer education program and myself (ML), about Viagra
and its social implications for senior communities:
ML: Do you agree that seniors are more sexually active than ever? [some heads
nod]
SW: At a Barnes & Noble presentation, they gave out condoms to the seniors
and told them to be careful.
SW: The HIV is coming from widowers who aren't ready to give up sex and
so they find prostitutes. Those are the ones spreading HIV among seniors!
Here, senior male Viagra-users are seen as the disease carriers, and are
thus blamed for rendering senior communities at risk. Interestingly, prostitutes
are not to blame; instead it is members of the senior community who
are at fault. These women express concern that senior men are more
sexually active than ever in the Viagra era, an assumption that, as Agnus
pointed out earlier, may be based on increased discussion of sex and aging
rather than actual increased behavior. In addition, sexual activity and
desire is publicly equated with the widowers in the community, further
reinforcing gendered stereotypes of women as asexual or sexually passive,
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and men as (out of control) sexual initiators. As we've seen in earlier
comments, such stereotypes do not always prove to be the case.
Marital duty
Men's sexual desires can be threatening in the senior community as well
as in the home. Two anonymous senior women suggested that the introduction
of Viagra resulted in sexually rejuvenated husbands, and unprepared,
sometimes fearful wives: `I would wonder how many women are
relieved that their active sex lives are over, and are petrified that their mates
will take Viagra.' The other said `It [Viagra] has rejuvenated some men ­
women are not prepared.'
In response to my survey question, `How has Viagra affected seniors'
lives?' the second most common response by senior women was to
emphasize danger over pleasure, expressing concern about Viagra as a
potential risk to women's emotional health in the context of a relationship.
In this section women talk about Viagra in the context of (changing)
marital and sexual arrangements and obligations. Specifically, they use
Viagra to critique and respond to traditional marriage scripts and ideas
about marital duty.
Two months after Viagra's debut Jane Brody, writing for the New York
Times, reported on `Facing Viagra's Emotional Ripples', or how Viagra
has contributed to exposing marital conflicts that otherwise might have
remained buried (Brody, 1998). This article was in response to an article
published earlier that month in the New York Times, entitled, `Some
Couples May Find Viagra a Home Wrecker' (Nordheimer, 1998). This
piece emphasized the risk Viagra represents for the health of the married
couple, including `devastating side-effects on relationships' such as new
sexual pressures sometimes leading to divorce and extramarital affairs.
Whether Viagra represents hope or danger, the existence of such a
product, and the increased sexual pressures that follow its use raise new
concerns for women regarding marital obligation and sexual duty. In the
next extract, Bette discusses Viagra in the context of what she sees as a
woman's obligation to please her man.
My SO [significant other], he uses Viagra, and you know, we are not sex
maniacs, but we do enjoy this. And he's such a nice person. I'd never tell him
no. Sometimes you have to give a little, when you know what they want. But
once or twice he's seen blue lights, and that is a little bit of a problem. But I
think it really does help for the man. It must make him feel so great to be able
to hold an erection. And you know the woman has something to do with it too
. . . I'm learning so much about men now. Sex was so taboo when we were
younger. But now I'm learning so much. I talk about it all the time. Talk to my
SO. See, life is about sharing and socializing. Iťs not necessarily about sex or
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not. But you do have to put in a little bit of effort in terms of what men want
to do. (Bette, 69)
Similarly, Annette points out that women will `go along with iť in the
context of a good relationship; otherwise, they may wonder why they
should bother. Several years after Viagra's debut, some women are now
finally communicating their lack of interest in sex.
A: For men, iťs a put-down if they can't have an erection. Women can
simulate it and if they are happy with their man, they'll go with it even
when iťs not the height of enjoyment. They'll do it to make their
husbands or lovers happy. You know, as the jokes wore off you were able
to have a more serious discussion related to Viagra. So you're getting to
feelings now, which [women] didn't dare express before. I don't have this
type of conversation amongst men, unfortunately. But I do discuss this
with women. Now they are looking at it more realistically than when it
came out. They were ashamed. Too many years of being ashamed if they
weren't a willing hot sex partner. But ­ now it is coming out that they
could live without it.
ML: You mean sex is not a priority?
A: Not in the older age group. (Annette, 81)
How far does one have to go to make a husband happy in the Viagra era?
Concerns about `pleasing one's man' have surfaced in the Viagra era, not
only in interview transcripts, but more visibly in advice columns.
Confusion about a woman's sexual duty to her husband in the Viagra
era led many senior women to write to Ann Landers for advice in 1998.
In each of these letters, these 60-something female authors are concerned
about their husbands using Viagra, stating that they are `tireď and uninterested
in sex. Despite their strong stances on not wanting their husbands
taking Viagra, these women are hesitant to bring their concerns to their
husbands as it is contrary to what they have been taught about marital
obligation. Instead, they suggest that they have `earned a resť, and then
ask for Ann's comments. Here are two examples:
Dear Ann: I am 62 years old and the mother of six grown children, and I was
thrilled when my 64 year old husband began to slow down (if you catch my
drift) about two years ago. I never was crazy about sex, but being from the old
school, I listened to my mother. She said a woman should never refuse her
husband because if he isn't taken care of at home, he will look elsewhere . . . So
now what happens? A pill called Viagra is invented and the old goat is back in
the saddle again. I do love my husband, Ann, but I believe I have earned a rest.
Besides, these pills cost $10 each. Last week he took four. Do you have any
advice on this subject, I would like to hear them, and I'll bet thousands of other
women would too. ­ Nameless in Ohio (Landers, 1998a.)21
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Dear Ann: My husband (age 68) got all excited when he read about that Viagra
pill. He has been dead as a doornail for five years. His doctor said it would be
OK for him to take the pill, but not to expect miracles. Well, so far nothing has
changed regarding his `condition' but he is wearing me out trying to prove that
he is a frisky young colt again. Please tell those smart-aleck scientists and those
big drug companies to work on a cure for cancer instead and quit running the
lives of millions of women who have earned a rest. Thank you. ­ No name in
Abilene, Kansas (Landers, 1998a. See note 20)
In these letters Viagra is constructed as a `wonder drug' that turned
inactive husbands into sexualized animals (an `old goať and a `frisky young
colť), leaving their wives frustrated and `worn ouť. While their husbands
may embrace Viagra's promise, these wives see only risk in buying into
frivolous scientific solutions, and expensive drugs. Questioning marital
duties gives these women a way out of the Viagra trap. Both wives imagine
that they are not alone in their hesitation about Viagra's role in their
marriage. Their letters may be motivated by desire for emotional support
from Ann Landers, but it is Landers' female readership that the authors
seem most interested in engaging in a dialogue. Rather than hanging their
heads in shame, authors see their letters potentially reaching thousands,
and use their personal troubles to invite other `tireď women (like them)
to make themselves known, insisting that such a community exists.
Landers responds consistently in a detached way, avoiding the question
of marital duty. Bypassing these women's concerns and complaints, she
responds with positive accounts regarding Viagra use and warnings about
Viagra's health-related side effects.
Dear Nameless in Ohio: I have already received a ton of mail about Viagra. Most
of the readers are calling it a `godsenď while about one-fourth of those writing
say they wish their husbands had never heard of the drug . . . The pill is enjoying
widespread acceptance but this miracle drug may have some [health-related
side-effects], so, my friends, beware. (Landers, 1998a. See note 21)
Dear Abilene: You told 'em but don't be surprised if nobody listens. While you
may or may not be thrilled with your husbanďs renewed interest in sex, let me
assure you that a great many women are grateful for Viagra and have written to
say so. (Landers, 1998a. See note 20)
By avoiding the marital concerns raised by a minority of her letterwriters,
Landers focuses on the Viagra-as-miracle and medical danger story
supported by the mainstream media. In the process, she reinforces the idea
of duty associated with marital love. In a further letter to a woman in
Philadelphia, Landers espouses her own beliefs on marital duty, upholding
the idea that love for a husband requires helping him enjoy the ultimate
in marital bliss. Landers seems most interested in helping these Viagra
wives attain happiness or relief through pleasing their husbands. The
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`downside' here is not the erasure of women's sexual desires, but the
health-related risks for the man.
Despite Lander's traditional views on marital love and obligation, and
the thousands of letters that seem to agree with this and the promise of
Viagra, an almost equal amount of letters written to advice columnists in
general reveal a letter-writing movement made up of Viagra wives opposed
to Viagra and what it represents, collectively rethinking marriage, male
potency, and traditional gender roles in the Viagra era. Dear Abby, another
major national advice column, posted this letter from a female baby
boomer in September of 1998, which ends in a call for honest data on
how women are feeling about sexual duty.
Dear Abby: My husband is of the opinion that if a woman doesn't enjoy sex
right up to the grave, there must be something wrong with her. At age 50, after
30 years of marriage, I would like to forget sex altogether. Believe me, I've paid
my dues. Where is it written that a woman should be ready and willing to
perform every time her man beckons? I suspect that many women just go
through the motions because they want to do something for the men they love.
I can't believe I'm the only woman who feels this way. Please poll your readers,
Abby. If they are honest, I think you will find that I am right. ­ Tired in Lincoln,
NE, (September 1998. See note 20)
Dear Tired: I invited women to send me an anonymous postcard stating
whether they agreed or disagreed with Tired. Here were the results:
Agreed 114,005
Disagreed 113,601 (Van Buren, 1998. See note 20)
The responses Dear Abby reports reveal how salient the issue of duty
must be for women in the Viagra era. In stark contrast to Viagra-related
pleasure as modeled in Pfizer promotional materials (revealing happy
heterosexual couples dancing and touching), it turns out that hundreds of
thousands of women are writing in to their local papers to talk back to
products like Viagra ­ which can exacerbate various social pressures to be
sexual ­ insisting that they are `tireď, they have `earned a resť, and they
have `done their duty'.
Saying no to marital obligation has many possible outcomes. For some,
it means ending a marriage. For others it means negotiation:
I know some women stop sleeping in the same bed with their husbands. But
obviously there was no longer a desire or a need. These women, if they ever
encountered a husband who suddenly woke up and said here I am and I can do
this, they find that they don't want to. Iťs everybody's right to say yes I do or
no I don't. If they feel strongly about the relationship, they'd probably hang in
there. (Sally, 75)
And in extreme cases, forced sexual obligation may lead to murder, as
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explained by the editor of Ladies Home Journal in a comment on public
television's talk show, To the Contrary (KCET Television, 2002).
According to this magazine editor, some Viagra wives `aren't so thrilleď
with their husbands' newfound potency, pointing to the case of the `New
York woman who shot her husband after he used Viagra and forced her
to play along'.
Sexualized masculinity
While women may disagree about whether Viagra represents for them
sexual pleasure or danger, most agree that Viagra cannot be disentangled
from masculinity. In interviews and anonymous surveys, women
commonly discuss Viagra in regard to men wanting to achieve confidence,
youth, vibrancy, and normalcy. In the following quotations anonymous
female respondents to my survey comment on the promise of Viagra for
the `old guys'.
`Viagra restores feelings of normalcy and confidence, I think ­.'
`Bob Dole claims he has benefited from it.'
`It gave the old guys a chance for their last hurrah.'
In contrast to the empathetic voices revealed here, some senior women
have been openly resistant to the efforts that scientists and pharmaceutical
companies have made to promote male virility, as revealed in the letter to
the editor highlighted at the beginning of this article. Whether women
draw on humor, empathy, or anger, most agree that Viagra, from the very
beginning, was about promoting a kind of sexualized (youthful) masculinity.
Widows Pauline and Doris laughed as they recalled when and what
they first heard about Viagra. For them, Viagra creates a perfect caricature
of sexually out-of-control men.
ML: What did you hear about Viagra?
P: That it makes you want to have sex if you are older. As a matter of fact,
there was even a sitcom, Mad About You, where he had taken a Viagra
and he was running around trying to connect with her. The idea is, it
makes you have the urges and the erection and it lasts supposedly longer
or certainly more frequent. And that was what I heard. I think that Mad
About You probably helped to popularize it even more. That was a great
program. (Pauline, 81)
The first time I heard about Viagra, it did not have a name . . . We have
a female talk show host in Florida who I listened to on the car radio practically
daily, since she was on from one to three o'clock and ordinarily I
would be going shopping or doing my volunteer work, and about three
years ago, she started talking about this new drug that could be taken any
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time by men, and would give them arousal and erection. I almost went
off the road into a tree when I had this mental image of all those men
leaving work at 5 o'clock, taking their pill, and having an erection on the
way home, timing it to be most effective. Just thinking of all those cars
with men and their penises pointing north even now gives me a chuckle.
(Doris, 86)
By mixing advertising and television images with humor and stereotypes,
Pauline and Doris, sexually active seniors, associate Viagra with a
particular performance of sexualized masculinity that paints a picture of
masses of men led by their erect penises. Such associations fit nicely with
common, yet potentially damaging cultural expectations about sexually
unrestrained men.
At times during our conversations, Viagra humor turned serious when
senior women discuss their male peers empathetically as vulnerable victims
who need Viagra, or mockingly as desperate, ego-driven individuals who
think they need Viagra. In the following, Agnus, Pauline, and Bette try to
imagine what it feels like for a man to suffer from impotence. Agnus says
her friend uses Viagra to feel `complete' again:
He told me, `You can't understand how it makes a man feeľ. When he can't
perform he said it makes him feel like not a whole man. Once he started using
the Viagra . . . he feels like a whole man again. (Agnus, 67)
Pauline compares the loss of penile functioning for men to loss of a breast
for women, a comparison that several of my male interview subjects made
as well.
I had a breast lump when I was 55 years of age. And I was hysterical because I
didn't know what that lump was and I said if I get my breast removed, you
won't love me anymore. I think that women have a very keen sense of breast
importance to their bodies. And I think that the breast is very important
emotionally to a woman . . . The same thing is true when a man has prostate
surgery and so frequently men become impotent . . . I think that the male feels
that that organ's function is very important to his machoism, or whatever you
want to call it. That is why Viagra has become so important to the male mentality.
(Pauline, 81)
And Bette sees manhood as continually tested by history, with impotence
as yet another test of male success.
When you think and read about US history ­ what these men have gone
through. Korean War, Vietnam, or WWII, they have had these experiences and
have sustained injuries too. I guess when they are at the height of passion they
don't want to worry about failing . . . And what do they call that where they
can't control their bladder? It really is sad ­ so few men around and the ones
who are around, they may have these problems. So what do you do? (Bette, 69)
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While some women empathize with men and their need for Viagra,
other women construct male Viagra consumers as ego-driven, desperate,
and penis-centered. In this way, Doris and Nora use Viagra as an opportunity
to mock masculinity.
Among the older population, impotency is very real, and since men judge their
success in life to the activity of their penises, you can see how they would drink
hemlock if it gave them an orgasm. (Doris, 86)
Men feel so much of their manhood is involved in sex. And if they can't perform
they just are devastated. They can't hide it like a woman can fake an orgasm. So
thaťs my thinking. . . . [But] some of the lengths that a man would go to
maintain an erection is amazing. Like that pump thing. I don't know how
anyone could have a pleasurable encounter by pumping it up. For me that would
be a terrible turn-off. But it is very important for a man. (Nora, 74)
Together, these senior women explain Viagra's popularity among men
by focusing on the importance of masculinity. For Nora and Doris, Viagra
exposes men as needing to be `macho', wanting to `show off', and going
to `great lengths' to produce and maintain erections. While each woman
projects different motives for men using Viagra, most agree that Viagra's
success is due to male vulnerability and insecurity, and the perceived role
of sexuality in proving one's masculinity. This characterization certainly
matches up with the earlier comments made by the male users of Viagra.
In this sense, one can certainly see why Pfizer would repeatedly choose to
sponsor male sporting events like car racing or baseball.
Sexualized culture
While most seem to agree that Viagra produces and reinforces sexualized
masculinities, some of the women I spoke with located Viagra and sexualized
men under a larger umbrella representing potentially dangerous,
large-scale cultural changes that affect everyone. In the following
quotations senior women conflate this quick-fix pill culture with heightened
emphasis on sexuality and the sexual fix. In this way, they associate
the increasingly sexualized culture they live in with an over-emphasis on
masculine ideals. As a result, sex is used to demonstrate physicality and
efficiency, rather than romance and feelings.
Let me tell you my objection to Viagra. Number one, the whole sex act has
become more physical than emotional. All of that preparation an hour in
advance, it makes sex not grow out of a loving feeling. It becomes planned and
purely physical. And I just don't like that. The whole idea of sex has become so
physical. Such gymnastics involved! And while I'm not opposed to experimentation
and variety ­ not at all ­ iťs become only that. The love is missing. The
affection! (Annette, 81)
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When I was growing up, sex wasn't something you admitted you enjoyed.
There's a lot of change in the generations. As to what was talked about, known.
Today it is almost too open. Today they don't leave anything to the imagination.
Some of it is charming when it isn't all revealed. (Nora, 74)
Annette and Nora both construct stories about how American cultural
norms and sex roles are changing in dangerous ways in the Viagra era. For
them, Viagra is the instigator of, or the scapegoat for, changing sexual
norms. Nora links this cultural change to a generational shift in sexual
discourse, which is `too open' today, leaving no sexual mystique. Concurrently,
Viagra is to blame for an increasingly sexualized culture that
promotes promiscuity:
The culture is teaching younger women that a violent physical sex act is part of
them. And if they feel that is what they want, they will look to the pill to give
it to them. And maybe it will, I don't know. But for older people, if they don't
have a loving relationship, of which sex is an outgrowth, I don't think they are
interested in the pill . . . It satisfies a man to have an erection and perform. It
doesn't satisfy a woman because all of that other stuff ­ the loving stuff ­ is
missing. (Annette, 81)
Viagra itself is not the only factor to blame in a culture dangerously
focused on the sexual fix. In the next extract, Nora mentions women's
movements as central in the increasing masculinization of sexuality in
society, leading women to act too much like men and ignore romance,
intimacy, and emotions:
Today a lot of the romance and closeness has been eliminated from our culture
because of women's liberation. Not that women shouldn't be entitled to enjoy
sex as a man, but its different. There is too much promiscuousness. I don't think
you have to sleep with somebody every time you go out on a date. I think we've
lost some respect for the sanctity. I don't say people shouldn't live together, I'm
not a prude, but I just think that sleeping around has become sort of commonplace.
It is bad emotionally for women, especially. It has changed men's view of
women. And I also think iťs a danger as far as pregnancy and contracting
sexually transmitted diseases. There it is in a nutshell. (Nora, 74)
A move towards masculine sexual ideals is also implied by Agnus:
What is important to me is being in love. I wouldn't be with someone just for
the sex. This is a woman's point of view. That love and affection are more
important than sex. A man would say the opposite. That sex is most important.
(Agnus, 67)
Together, Agnus, Annette, and Nora blame Viagra for promoting new
problematic cultural expectations and pressures related to sexuality. They
construct women's sexuality as emotional, mysterious, and romantic, as
opposed to male sexuality which is non-emotional and physical. With
Viagra, and larger social forces such as women's liberation, these senior
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women claim that masculine sexuality has set new and dangerous standards
for women and society.
Despite the cultural shift towards masculine ideals and sexual pressures,
Sally, Annette, Doris, and Hilda suggest that Viagra is representative of a
problematic quick-fix, `pill culture', where a drug exists as a solution to
every problem or as an enhancement to every lifestyle. What these women
contribute to the conversation is a sense of being `caughť in a pill culture
that both promotes and benefits from people's limited tolerance for
personal discomfort, as well as a culture that excludes people who cannot
afford these solutions.
My feeling is that if Robert Redford wants to come get me, and needs Viagra
(what an evil thought) I would get some for him. But on a serious note, no, I
do not believe in the pill being the answer to sexual problems. Today we have
pills for everything . . . it seems to be a cultural thing now. (Doris, 86)
The only thing that bothers me about this when I hear about all of these
wonderful opportunities is the price. I think the price is going to leave even the
middle classes behind. The insurance companies may not want to pay for some
of these high-priced wonders. But I do think that the rich will have a greater
advantage in all of these things. (Sally, 75)
People's tolerance levels are really low. If it hurts, go get a pill. I'm not like that.
I figure you should fight it. Like here at the pool, I tell people with arthritis to
go in the pool, because water is good for it. But they'd rather take a pill. I
wouldn't. Iťs too easy to take a pill. Even a diet pill. They'd rather take a diet
pill than go to a gym. (Hilda, 80)
In general, Doris, Sally, Hilda, and others are using Viagra to construct
and critique changing cultural norms and values. Problems associated with
the Viagra era include harmful sexual norms and expectations, prohibitively
expensive prescriptions, a quick-fix ethic, and an under-emphasis on
romance and emotions. In this way, senior women storytellers suggest that
Viagra offers more harm than good for women, sexuality, and relationships,
butting up against medical and mass media constructions of Viagra
as a solution to social and medical problems.
Conclusions
In the rush to praise and hype Viagra, most of us tend to forget about, or
simplify the `other side' of the Viagra story. But women have much to say
about Viagra, and their voices are worth listening to. Women in this article
reveal complex sexual identities, desires, and fears. This `messy' side of sex
and sexuality, for both men and women, is repeatedly obscured, simplified,
or ignored by scientists, journalists, and marketers. The women in
this article want us to question such cultural expectations, and to question
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a cultural phenomenon that ends up reinforcing ideas about sexuality
conflated with manhood and male desires. At the same time, they remind
us that everyone is a product of their culture, and all of us have complex
and conflicting ideas and feelings about sexuality in the Viagra era. Women
are caught up in the social realities of our time including medicalization,
gender and sexual oppression, and increased commercialization, perhaps
even to a larger degree than men. In addition, whether taking a pill or
talking about our desires, all of us are sexual agents, actively defining sexuality
in our own lives.
In this article, senior women struggle to make sense of gender, sexuality,
and health in their daily lives, a process that remains private and unexplored
in public discourse. They locate their own sexual lives, dreams, and
concerns in relation to the Viagra phenomenon, within a continuum of
pleasure and danger. And their stories reflect and reinforce changing
perceptions about gender roles, marriage, sexual obligation, and health in
the Viagra era. Along with senior women writing into advice columns
nationwide, these women use Viagra to bulwark and butt up against social
institutions such as marriage, medicine, culture, and gender roles.
As we have seen, ideological remnants from past women's sexual
revolutions live on in these senior women's critiques of obligatory `masculine
sex' and their calls for women's sexual pleasures, permissions, and `sex
on their own terms'. But their perspectives are more complicated than
sexual liberation messages. Some emphasize social and personal danger in
their critiques of Viagra-related cultural norms and trends, including
gender and sexual oppression, as well as the commercialization, masculinization,
and medicalization of sex. On the other hand, some see Viagra as
an opportunity to empathize with men, tell stories about medical progress,
and embrace the potential for medically-enhanced female pleasure and
desire. All in all senior women may use Viagra differently from their
relatively silent male counterparts21 to construct dialogue, community,
and even social action. As this article reveals, senior women use Viagra
stories infused with pleasure and danger rhetoric to build solidarity among
women and/or to point to a need for social change.
Notes
1. An expanded version of this article can be found in my forthcoming book,
The Rise of Viagra: How The Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America, to be
published by New York University Press in Fall, 2004. In this book, I argue
that the debut of Viagra in 1998, a `blockbuster' erection drug produced by
Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, that works through increased blood circulation,
made visible and contributed to shifting perceptions of `normaľ sex, gender,
aging, and medicine. Thus, the Viagra era marks not only the availability of a
drug, but more importantly, a marked expansion in discourse in the US
about for-profit medicine, the construction of masculinity, sexual standards,
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and the medicalization of everyday life. It is in this context, against the
backdrop of the Viagra phenomenon, that senior women discuss and reveal
their own changing perceptions about social life and social institutions in the
United States at the turn of the century.
2. See John Leland `A Pill for Impotence?' Newsweek, 17 November 1997:
62­8.
3. `Letters to the Editor' Newsweek, 8 December 1997: 22.
4. The most common exception to this rule is when a wife speaks publicly
about how Viagra has helped her husband (see 2001 Pfizer print and
television ads and promotional materials). Despite this, there is no doubt
that the phenomenon has touched women's lives in numerous ways, as we
can see by the voices highlighted in this article.
5. The `sexual stories' I collected through advice columns and interviews are
personal experience narratives around Viagra use, which may or may not
elicit stories about intimacy (Plummer, 1995: 7). For example, Viagra
narratives reveal just as much about aging, science and technology, health
and medicine, and gender, as they reveal about sex. As sexual stories, they
`flow from the culture and back into it;' thus they are major resources for
comprehending a culture and its dynamics, values and changes (Plummer,
1995: 176). Additionally, these stories take the form of `claims-making' in
the sense that these women are making claims, constructing grievances, and
locating sexuality within a matrix of social problems they take issue with.
For more on claims-making, see, for example, Spector and Kitsuse (1977).
6. I had taught at the senior summer school for a summer. I described my
project to the directors of three organizations in the Southern California
area, the senior summer school in which I was employed, a senior singles
club, and a retirement home in the Southern California area, explaining that
I was a doctoral student interested in seniors' reactions to the Viagra
phenomenon. Two of the organizations allowed me to distribute a one-page
survey to their members, while the latter, the retirement home, was not
comfortable with the subject matter of my research, explaining that it was a
`privacy issue' for their boarders.
7. All names were changed to protect my informants. All interviews took place
over the telephone in October and November, 2000. All were conducted by
the author and tape recorded.
8. If I had asked senior women to talk with me about their sexual lives, many
might have been shy or intimidated, and it may have been even harder to
find interview subjects.
9. Of the four groups of claims-makers I have interviewed, I have argued that
each group uses specific public sites to engage in Viagra-related dialogue. In
this article, I argue that senior women use women-friendly sites such as
syndicated advice columns, for public claims-making. In contrast, for
medical experts, Viagra discourse thrives in spaces inviting medical dialogue
­ the pages of medical newsletters and journals, and conference rooms
across the country hosting medical conferences dedicated to sexual
dysfunction. Male consumers use the doctor's office as their primary site for
dialogue about sexuality, gender roles, aging, and Viagra, many times
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choosing to confide in the doctor over and above friends and loved ones.
(They also use collective spaces such as web chatrooms and support groups
for support.) And marketers use mass media sites in the form of print, radio,
and television advertisement space, as well as promotional materials, press
releases, and physical displays to communicate about Viagra.
10. While these women rarely invoked the past in these interviews, it is worth
pointing out that for all of us, memory construction is closely tied to
identity construction, and complex psychological and social processes and
contexts can affect construction processes. In this project, I am much more
interested in these constructions of subjectivity and `truth' than impossible
to find `objective' truths. For more on the elderly and memory construction,
see Barbara Myerhoff et al.'s Remembered Lives (1992) and Kenyon
and Randalľs Restorying our Lives (1997).
11. For more on the complex debates surrounding the 1982 Barnard College
conference called, `Towards a Politics of Sexuality and ongoing historical
discussions about sexuality and feminism, see volumes edited by Ann Snitow
et al. (1983) and Carole Vance (1984) as well as historical accounts by
scholars such as Duggan and Hunter (1995).
12. The expectation that seniors were asexual emerged in many of my interviews
with various Viagra claims-makers, including marketers, practitioners, and
consumers. For example, doctors would tell me that they were `surpriseď,
`uncomfortable', or even `queasy' to see male patients in their 70s and 80s
ask for Viagra. Baby boomers commented to me with unease that their
parents were using Viagra. And even my colleagues reading drafts of this
article commented that the subject matter shocked them.
13. According to Levy, the Kinsey analysis published in the 1950s contained
only 126 men and 56 women over 60 years old, out of a total sample of
18,000 adults, and Masters and Johnson's studies published in the 1970s
included only 31 subjects over 60 years of age (Levy, 1994: 288).
14. Former US Senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole was an early
promoter of Viagra, paid by Pfizer to do television spots discussing his
experience with prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction.
15. The survey was completed by 788 women, and 596 men. It is important to
point out that there are problems with this survey, e.g. limited reporting,
small sample size, and simplistic quantitative findings.
16. According to the reporťs authors, for men, `better health' heads the list of
priorities for improving seniors' sex lives. Researchers found that a `generation
gap in sexual attitudes' between baby boomers and their parents, especially
among women, is especially apparent. In relation to the Viagra phenomenon,
the report suggests, `If women had enjoyed sex in the past, they would enjoy
it with a partner taking Viagra'. In terms of women's pleasure, Modern
Maturity reported that `More than half of women whose partners use Viagra
(only 5% of the pool) say that Viagra increased their own pleasure'. Finally,
authors of the Modern Maturity report suggest that for women 60 and over,
`better health for a partner' and `finding a partner' are top priorities.
17. Hilda and Pauline's sexual health concerns are not unfounded. A minority of
health-centered publications have addressed the risk that Viagra may pose to
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women's physical health. For example, The New England Journal of
Medicine, reported six months after Viagra's debut that Viagra may not only
be associated with health risks for men (heart attacks), but also for women
(acute cystitis). According to a letter sent by three doctors in September
1998, to the New England Journal of Medicine, `More and more older
women are suffering from frequent, urgent, burning urination ­ usually
found among women half their age, usually after prolonged sexual activity.'
One of the doctors explained the growing prevalence of acute cystitis among
women to the New York Times, stating `Every one of their husbands had
been treated with Viagra.' In 1999, health newsletters such as Johns Hopkins
Health Insider, strongly urged women with partners on Viagra to use a
lubricant, reminding readers `your bodies are not as pliable as they once
were'. Linda Villarosa (1998) `Vital Signs: Update; Viagra and the Older
Woman', New York Times, October 13: F11, and Julia G. Strand (1999)
`Viagra Wives', The Johns Hopkins Health Insider, May.
18. Viagra is unsafe for men with heart conditions and those taking particular
medications, but not a health risk for most men.
19. For examples of news reports on seniors and Viagra in relation to dating and
divorce, and which mention HIV, see Lara (2002) `Sex, Lies, and Viagra',
and Koehn (2003) `The Late Divide'.
20. Permission to reprint this letter was granted by the Esther P. Lederer Trust
and Creators Syndicate, Inc.
21. See my article in Sexuality and Culture (Loe, 2001) for more on male sexual
storytelling related to Viagra.
References
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May: F7.
Duggan, Lisa and Hunter, Nan D. (1995) Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political
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Glaser, Barney G. and Strauss, Anselm L. (1967) The Discovery of Grounded
Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
Goodfellow, Sarah (2004) `The Sexual Hush: Medical and Scientific Representations
of Late-Life Sexuality, 1850­1920'. Dissertation, Pennsylvania State
University.
Hite, Shere (1994) Women as Revolutionary Agents of Change: The Hite Reports
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Jacoby, Susan (1999) `Great Sex: Whaťs Age Got To Do With It?' Modern
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KCET Television (2002) `Viagra and Women', To the Contrary, USA, broadcast
20 January.
Kenyon, Gary M. and Randall, William L. (1997) Restorying our Lives: Personal
Growth Through Autobiographical Reflection. New York: Praeger Publishers.
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13 July.
Landers, Ann (1998c) `Viagra No Wonder Drug for Women Tired of Sex', San
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Biographical Note
Meika Loe is currently Assistant Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies at
Colgate University in New York, where she teaches courses on social problems,
gender, sexuality, and medicine. Her new book, The Rise of Viagra: How the The
Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America will be published by New York
University Press in August 2004. Address: Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, Colgate University, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346. [email:
mloe@mail.colgate.edu]
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