Today's rant is about the advertising campaign for drugs like Viagra. Since when did a four-hour erection become appropriate to discuss on television? I was watching football yesterday [ok, I wasn't watching professional football, I was watching the Eagles] and up popped [pardon the pun] a disturbing Viagra commercial. One of those 60-second ones that you can't ignore. Hey, assholes: I've got kids watching this game. It's bad enough I'm subjecting them to some of the most mediocre football in the last 20 years, don't force me into having to explain to my seven-year olds what priapism is.
There are so many things wrong with these Viagra commercials, I don't know where to begin. First, I think it's important that we as a nation come together and agree that erectile dysfunction needs to go back where it was for hundreds of years: in the closet, bedroom, toilet stall, wherever, anywhere but on television commercials. Whatever happened to the good old days when not only didn't you know that your middle aged neighbor was having sex, but that you didn't even think he him and 'sex' in the same thought pattern?
Second, every actor in these commercials is creeper than the last one. These guys look like they'd just as soon stick it in a Boy Scout or a farm animal as they would a woman, and I'm supposed to sit there and believe he's that happy about banging the same woman he's been banging for 25 years? It's like Chris Rock says, when you've been married, your fucking days are over - oh, you'll have intercourse. But your fucking days, are over. I don't want to see these creepy middle aged freaks in these commercials and their equally disturbing-looking middle aged wives engaging in game of mahjong let alone sexual intercourse.
And yet, turn on your TV and there he is: that smiling pedophile-grin shooting back at you as he dances through the house with his old lady prior to a mid-day tumble. First of all, if you're going to do an ad campaign, be true to the product. The guy should be walking around with an erection, for one thing. Why not have a campaign where you see the guy at work with a raging hard-on while he's addressing a staff meeting comprised of mostly women frantically trying to ignore the new member of their team who is standing at attention? Then, he could be on the bus, and he could be poking people indiscriminately with it, apologizing profusely and explaining that he took a Viagra and they shouldn't take it personally. Finally, when he gets home and thinks he's going to finally hit paydirt he flings open the door only to find that his wife has thrown a surprise birthday party for him. There, fifty of his best friends - 51 if you count the little guy still standing at attention - can let the awkwardness of the moment just wash over them. Now, that's a commercial.
Listen, no one is more sympathetic than me to a guy who can't get it up anymore. Quite frankly, it's about the only reason to stay alive. So, I intellectually understand the need for Viagra and Cialis and all of those other stiffy-generating pharmaceuticals. But enough is enough: this must go back to being a shameful, never-discussed issue. Viagra should never be advertised anywhere, much less on television. It should be like heroin or cocaine - available, but just a little hard to get...pardon the pun, again. Middle-aged guys could still get it, but the rest of us - and yes, I'm aware I'm approaching middle age - can go back to pretending that these creepy guys don't even think about sex anymore, let alone have it.
Tomorrow, or some day in the future, I'll share my opinion on those awful prostate drug commercials with the four old guys who keep peeing. I figured we've had enough pecker talk for one day.
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