It's Hard

So the other night I'm indulging in perhaps my only classically manly pursuit: I'm watching a football game. During a break in the action we get the ads and up comes one for Cialis, the drug for Erectile Dysfunction (where would televised football be without sponsorship aimed at flacid, beer-swillers). The ad is for a new formulation of the drug that is once a day, "so you're always ready." Uh, excuse me?

I bring it up to my resident pharma expert. My wife hasn't heard of it and why should she? Unless you're in there for that disturbing Cialis side-effect, "an erection lasting more than five hours," hospitalization rarely requires penile engorgement assistance, despite the apocryphal Forum stories of randy nurses. Anyway, she is surprised. "What," she asks, "is the point?" "Exactly," I offer, "What seventy year old man needs to be ready at any moment?" "Well," she counters, "those drugs are aimed at men your age." "Well what man my age needs to be ready all the time?"

Really, seriously, there are guys with legitimate ED issues, but are there enough of them to keep this industry alive? Is this just a question, not of erections, but of mighty erections? I don't know, but it almost makes me wish TV could advertise cigarettes again.