ERECTILE INTELLIGENCE

A guy wearing a cowboy hat gets a horse trailer stuck in a mud puddle. He looks like a rugged rancher. He goes to the rear of the horse trailer and gets the horses out. He hitches them up to the front of the truck and uses them to pull the truck and trailer out of the mud.

Another confident guy who looks to be in his forties is driving a classic car down an isolated desert highway. Steam begins to pour from under the hood. He pulls into a broken down gas station and fixes the problem. Then he goes on his way, driving back onto the same empty desert road.

Both of these scenarios are advertisements for the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra. The first one suggests that men who take Viagra are smart enough to figure out how to pull a truck out of a mud puddle. If he's smart enough to do that, and rugged enough to do the tough work of hitching up a team of horses to the front of a truck, then we're supposed to assume that he's also taken charge of his erectile dysfunction problems as well. As soon as he gets back to his ranch at night, he'll be ready for sex.

The guy driving by himself through the desert has an overheated engine. He pulls into a convenient, middle of nowhere gas station and because he's smart enough to take care of his erectile dysfunction, he's able to repair the overheating problem. He closes the hood, gets back into the car, and drives off. I have no idea where he's going or why he's driving through the middle of nowhere in a car more likely to break down than a newer model.

The message is clear. If you're a problem solver you need to take charge of your erectile dysfunction. If you don't, you probably won't know what to do if you get your horse trailer stuck in the mud or your car overheats.

These commercials feature men who don't look old enough to have erectile dysfunction problems. Instead of an eighty year old derelict driving a beat up pickup truck down a bumpy back road, we're presented with self assured men conquering difficulties because they don't have to worry about not being able to get an erection. If my radiator blew in the middle of the desert the last thing I'd worry about is getting an erection. But maybe, if I'm smart enough to swallow Viagra, I'll be smart enough to fix an engine.