I test-drove Viagra recently.
Swallowed the hype whole. Popped the blue pill. Oh, sure. Miss a trend? Moi ?
Ever since news of Pfizer Inc.’s Viagra started coming down the pike the past couple of months, I’ve been curious. In the time that the potency pill has been available, about a fortnight or so, some 40,000 prescriptions a day have been written nationwide. “And not everyone clamoring to try the drug is clinically impotent,” proclaimed The Wall Street Journal on April 20.
No kidding. “We don’t need it, man,” one of my more rugged pals from the David Barton Gym roared, and practically pounded his chest when I asked if he had any thoughts about trying Viagra.
The next morning, he was on the phone to his doctor.
An unscientific poll on my part hasn’t found anyone, man, woman and those friends in between, who isn’t interested in Viagra. In the media, from the front page of The Washington Post to the cover of Time to the New York Post ‘s Page Six column, Viagra is news. The Pope has given his blessing! David Letterman is using it: No. 1 on his list of top 10 Viagra side effects? Pregnancy. Maureen Dowd has penned her Sunday column about “Father’s Little Helper” for The Times . It’s a matter of seconds before someone writes the authoritative Zeitgeist piece connecting the end of Seinfeld with the advent of Viagra.
During an annual physical about a month ago, my internist and I discussed all the new diets and rejuvenating therapies. I had a clean bill of health, thank goodness, from Lyme disease to testosterone levels. For stress reduction, he recommended acupuncture and meditation. No medication, of any sort. Then I asked him about Viagra. I’m a few minutes over 40 now. There is always room for improvement, I figured. I wanted to try it.
The Federal Drug Administration may approve of Viagra, but my internist doesn’t. His first experience prescribing it for a patient was a bomb. Viagra functions by increasing blood flow, but the blood pumped into the patient’s stomach instead of his penis. Not very sexy.
My Viagra connection came several days later from, of all people, the formidable style czar André Leon Talley. We were having lunch at “44” and Mr. Talley arrived with a book tucked under his arm. He had just come from his first appointment with his new internist, Steven Lamm, recommended to Mr. Talley by Robert Duffy, the business partner of fashion designer Marc Jacobs. Mr. Talley had gone to Dr. Lamm for help in treating a seasonal respiratory malady. In the process, Dr. Lamm sought Mr. Talley’s counsel on who should cut his hair, and who his fiancée should use as a colorist, before the good doctor and his lady marry on May 8. (The reception is at Le Cirque 2000. The groom will wear an Issey Miyake dinner jacket. The bride’s shoes are Prada.) Mr. Talley was amused.
“And he gave me his book, which Simon & Schuster publishes the first week in May. You should write about him,” Mr. Talley said, resting the doctor’s new book on the table.
The title on the book’s red, white and blue cover saluted me. The Virility Solution: Everything You Need to Know About the F.D.A.-Approved Potency Pill That Can Restore and Enhance Male Sexuality; The Amazing Drug Viagra . The book is co-authored by Gerald Secor Couzens, with whom Dr. Lamm wrote Younger at Last in 1997 and Thinner at Last in 1995, which helped popularize the use of phen-fen, the diet aid later discovered to cause heart problems for some users.
I called Dr. Lamm on April 16. He agreed to an interview to discuss his book and said he’d consider me as a candidate for Viagra if I saw him as a patient. His fee for the consultation was $150. The appointment was scheduled for the afternoon of Monday, April 21.
That evening I attended a dinner party. My appointment with Viagra made me a bit anxious. At table, I mentioned my plans to test the pill and write about it.
“Remember erections?” one of the middle-aged guests wisecracked nostalgically.
A series of Viagra jokes were told. A favorite concerned the swinging senior citizen who takes his date to dinner, the Viagra tablet revving in his jacket pocket. He pops the pill before dessert, the couple can’t wait to get home, and they make love right on top of the table, pushing champagne glasses and sorbets to the floor.
“Were there any side effects?” a friend asks the old fellow later.
“Well, not really,” he answers. “Except I don’t think we’ll get the same table at Daniel.”
Laughter. More jokes. The ladies at the dinner party especially seemed fascinated. The men quite gamely talked about their experiences with alleged aphrodisiacs like ginseng and libido boosters such as Yohimbe. I volunteered an image that came to me, the streets of the Hamptons steaming with greasy potentates pumping Viagra dreams this summer. What fresh hell would that be?
Before my Viagra experiment there were a couple of people I needed to talk to. One is a friend with whom I often discuss a decision I made over 18 months ago to not drink alcohol or imbibe any mood-altering chemical substances. She took the same step about three years ago. Sobriety isn’t always easy, but I’ve never felt better. I didn’t want to court any digression from my program by taking this new, trendy pill.
“It is not classified as mood-altering,” my friend said of the circulatory drug. “But I wouldn’t take it. And I wouldn’t write about it. You shouldn’t do anything to encourage people to take something that might later be found harmful.”
I decided to proceed cautiously. Frankly, the novelty of taking Viagra and writing about it appealed to my competitive nature. But as the deadline approached, the subject began to embarrass me; I realized I couldn’t back out no matter how much humiliation I was heaping on myself.
The plot thickened: My deadline and my penile responses were now officially linked.
And I still hadn’t asked my partner of four years if he would indulge me in a romantic interlude so I could test Viagra. As we live together only on weekends, seeing each other during the week whenever we steal the time, a date for my experiment would have to be arranged in advance.
I popped the question on the 8 P.M. Hampton Jitney to Southampton Friday, April 17. Suddenly, such hot topics as the repairing of the bumper on the Volvo station wagon, and would I please refrain from buying one single more tchotchke for the weekend shack, became a discussion about human sexual response: mine.
“Do you think you’re impotent?” my friend asked.
The word never had been spoken in my direction before.
“Ssssh,” I whispered, finger to my lips. “Don’t ever say that word out loud. It’s bad luck.”
“Are you really going to write about it?” my friend asked. “Do you think the readers really want to know about these things? From you?”
I remembered when I wrote about wearing skirts for a week the year men’s wear designers showed them on the runway. I remembered how ridiculous I felt midway through the experiment when a truck driver started yelling at me at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 15th Street. I was negotiating a blizzard while wearing a Burberry kilt.
“There’s no turning back. I need a column. Besides, yes, I want to try Viagra. I think I might derive some benefit from it, if it doesn’t kill me.”
My appointment with Dr. Lamm was April 21. My friend and I arranged to meet the evening of April 22. We’d go to his place from Periyali where he was scheduled to dine with a lady friend. I would come for coffee, with the pill ready, if I passed–or is it flunked?–Dr. Lamm’s exam and got a prescription. We’d see what developed. The column was due Friday, April 24.
The next person I informed was my psychiatrist. (If it sounds like I’ve got more doctors and diets than a duchess has charms on a bracelet, I do.) He tentatively approved. I told him I had an appointment with Dr. Lamm.
“He’s written a book? He’s not a urologist. What the fuck does Steve Lamm know about impotence and sexual dysfunction?”
“Ssssh,” I whispered. “Don’t speak those words.”
Dr. Lamm’s office is at 12 East 86th Street. I expected a line of men around the corner to see the doctor. Instead, the waiting room was filled with women. Among the ladies working in the office was Dr. Lamm’s mother, a consoling note, I suppose. At 5 o’clock sharp, I was ushered into the doctor’s office. He’s a jolly, handsome fellow, this Dr. Lamm. Tall. Animated. A body fat of 15 percent, he told me. I’d read The Virility Solution the night before. The book discusses “erectile dysfunction,” or “ED” for short, and the array of new medicines such as Viagra. It also offers dietary suggestions and “virility-friendly” exercises for enhancing one’s sexual life. Mostly, it’s about the pill, how it works on the circulatory system, what to do to enhance the drug’s effectiveness. Dr. Lamm is not affiliated with Pfizer. He spent over a year conducting tests with Vasomax, another virility drug expected to be approved by the F.D.A. later this year.
Among the framed, autographed photographs on bookcase shelves is a picture of Frank Sinatra.
“No comment,” the amiable physician said before I even asked.
“The Rat Pack and their Hollywood Regency swinging Palm Spring weekends are very trendy with hip kids these days,” I said.
Still no comment about Sinatra.
I asked the doctor if he’d heard any good Viagra jokes.
He said his favorite was “Viagra put the ‘R’ in bone.”
Which went over my hairdo, or lack thereof.
“Boner! Get it?” Dr. Lamm explained.
I felt self-conscious suddenly. Two minutes after meeting a stranger and we’re talking about dicks.
“People fax me Viagra jokes constantly,” Dr. Lamm volunteered, then fine-tuned the conversation. “You understand, from reading the book, that Viagra is not an aphrodisiac. It does not create desire where desire does not exist.
“The classic joke is about the patient who is prescribed the medication and is told to go home and make love to his wife within an hour. But his wife isn’t there. He calls his doctor. ‘What should I do? My wife’s not here,’ he tells the doctor. ‘So who is there?’ the doctor asks. ‘The maid,’ the man says. ‘So make love to the maid.’ And the patient answers, ‘But I didn’t need a pill to do that.'”
Dr. Lamm then explained how he came to write The Virility Solution . “My mission is selfish,” he said. “I have an enormous need to be involved with new projects. That excitement is my drug. Too often, an internist functions as a repairman. I’d rather function as a coach for my patients.
“Viagra is a facilitator of erections, not a facilitator of relationships,” he continued. “But the medicine is going to have enormous implications for couples.”
Such enthusiasm for the latest innovations has its side effects, however. In 1997, a 51-year-old businesswoman filed a $20 million negligence suit against Dr. Lamm and three pharmaceutical companies that manufactured phen-fen. The medication made her feel “hyper,” court papers said. Eventually, she was diagnosed with sclerosis of the aortic valve, which she blamed on the diet drug. The case is still pending.
“The F.D.A. approves these drugs,” said Dr. Lamm. “I use what I think is effective.” Like many physicians riding the Viagra wave, Dr. Lamm trusts findings that say Viagra has little or no potential downside. “But I wouldn’t recommend taking it more than once a day,” he said. “Or exceeding 100 milligrams.”
I asked Dr. Lamm, age 49, if he had taken Viagra yet. He hasn’t. “I don’t feel a need to,” he said, “although I’m curious.”
I found it curious that he hadn’t tried it. But the majority of this city’s most popular plastic surgeons don’t indulge in the nippings and tuckings that make them rich, either. Maybe they know too much?
“The data suggests Viagra is not going to enhance people who are functioning 100 percent,” Dr. Lamm added.
“But what’s 100 percent?” I asked. “Isn’t it relative?”
“We write about this in the book. Should doctors give the new medications to patients who don’t have ED, but who want to be as rock-hard as when they were 20?”
I smiled and said I hoped so.
“Erections are a quality-of-life issue,” said Dr. Lamm. “You didn’t think baby boomers with a sense of entitlement were going to take even the slightest suggestion of sexual dysfunction lying down, did you? Baby boomers feel that if it is available, why not take it as long as it doesn’t hurt them? It’s normal, after a certain age, to have failures because you’re tired. You’re jet-lagged. The stock market dropped 75 points, but it’s difficult explaining that to a baby boomer. It’s not sufficient when his attitude is, ‘Excuse me, I happen to have an encounter this evening and I need to perform at peak level.’ Women cannot figure out why men cancel dates at the last minute, or don’t call again. We found in our studies for the book that one of the reasons men over 40 cancel or drop out is because they fear they cannot function that evening. With the new sexual medicine, we can redefine the difference between normal and ideal function, not the way it was defined 10 or 15 years ago. Thanks to these medicines, it’s not about impotency. It’s about sexual enhancement. It’s about raising the performance level of men who may have been functioning at a lower level. That’s going to raise their expectations, of course. It may cause problems with their partners.”
My exam began with a discussion about my libidinous responses. I volunteered that I responded on a daily basis to a variety of stimulants, including most Calvin Klein ads. I was asked if I took Prozac, or any antidepressant that might inhibit erections. Did I have any lower back problems that might cause circulation problems “in the area?” (“No,” to the Prozac question; an occasional “yes” to the lower back.)
“Think of it as a hydraulic system,” Dr. Lamm said. “We have to fill the general area with blood.” Did I drink? Did I exercise? Tell him about my father’s heart disease. Did I lose an erection when I used a condom? Was there any deformity “in the penis”?
“I doubt it is big enough,” I answered.
“This drug,” Dr. Lamm smiled, “will not make it bigger.”
He then asked me to fill out “The International Index of Erectile Function Questionnaire.” Fifteen detailed questions ranging from the most graphic matters of penetration to orgasmic function which one answers in a scale of responses from 0 to 5 signifying always, sometimes, a few times and never.
Three answers of “sometimes” and guess what? I qualified for a prescription of Viagra.
“Welcome to the new world of sexual medicine,” Dr. Lamm said, scribbling the prescription. Then he signed a copy of The Virility Solution . “Dear William,” he wrote. “Stay Hard.”
Before I left, he advised me how to maximize the effects of pill. I should take it 30 to 60 minutes before my “encounter” the next evening, on an empty stomach.
“What should I eat for dinner, so my stomach will be empty?” I asked.
Dr. Lamm thought. “‘The Viagra Sex Dinner.’ I’ve got to figure this out.”
He decided a low-fat meal would make the most sense. As would working out beforehand. He approved especially of training one’s legs, “to increase the flow into the pelvis.”
“The drug was created as a heart medicine,” he added. “But its enzyme works predominately in the penile tissue. Some of the enzyme works in the eye, which is why patients may get a blue-green tinge. It’s safe. Don’t worry.”
“A pretty blue and green?”
“Very pretty,” Dr. Lamm said.
Wednesday, April 22, V-Day, the day of my Viagra trial. I felt like a stud horse getting ready for his last gasp before the glue factory. Don’t laugh: I stopped for a haircut at the barber. (I’m hair-impaired.) As soon as I could at the end of the work day, I rushed to Zitomer pharmacy on Madison Avenue to fill the prescription.
“Haven’t seen one of these in 10 minutes,” the pharmacist said.
One hundred seventy-five dollars for 15 pills. Viagra is the Manolo Blahnik of prescription medicine.
Went to the gym. Still didn’t know what I was going to eat for dinner so, seeking advice, I confessed my evening’s plan to my trainer, a twentysomething lean Hercules with the gentle countenance of a faun. Heterosexual.
“Why don’t you just take ginger? Not pills. Ginger is good,” he advised with the conviction of a 20-year-old.
After the workout, I ate a cardboard-tasting protein bar.
I showered. Shaved. Went home. Debated what to wear. Jeans and a T-shirt? Too tarty. Corduroys? Too Mr. Rogers. I settled for a trusted Comme des Garçons blue suit nearly vintage in age.
Hailed a taxi at 78th and Park, almost died in the dash to Periyali on West 20th Street. Visited with my friend and his guest.
“He told me,” the lovely lady began to say.
“He told you!” I interrupted nervously.
The lady looked confused.
She meant something else entirely. I apologized. Said I was nervous about a looming deadline. Excused myself. Went to the loo. At 10:40 P.M., swallowed Viagra with tap
Prayed for that craving to pass and returned to the table. Waited for signs of liftoff, not knowing exactly what to expect. We said our goodbyes to our friend and walked up Sixth Avenue toward his place. I lingered in front of Barnes & Noble. Nervous. “Come on,” my friend said. “You wanted to do this.”
We made it finally to his bedroom in Chelsea. No blue-and-green tinge. Just two men, one taller and younger than the bald one.
“I can’t believe you were late,” my friend said. “So much pressure. It’s like we had a window to get pregnant or something. Now what are we supposed to do?”
It’s been 30 minutes since I popped the pill. “Just wait, I guess. Act normal.”
Of course, for four years we had been acting normal, well, normal except by standards of the militant right wing. How was this evening to unfold any differently? We undressed. Laughed nervously. I reached for a magazine. What did I expect would happen? Being a product of the 60’s, I expected nothing less than an LSD trip for the penis. Frankly. Something Led Zeppelin in a priapic purple haze.
We kissed.
“Are you really going to write about this?” my friend asked. “It’s like a bad scene from Heartburn . The film.”
Fifteen minutes later, still awkward silences. Lying on the bed. Clocking the family portraits on the walls. Waiting for something to happen. Not certain how to proceed. Then my friend observed that my face and scalp had gone beet red.
“Maybe I’m having a stroke. Can you have too much blood circulation? Do you have the phone number for an ambulance, in case?” I asked.
We got up from the bed and examined my face in the mirror. I was Corvette red. But we started laughing. Goofing around now. Making jokes. Making out. Then we noticed something else. Well, one found at one’s middle in the middle of one’s life something that hadn’t been quite so quite so in a spell. Perky. Very perky. Really rock hard. That was a little bit of all right. Dr. Lamm had mentioned a handy test. Give a few taps to oneself and see if it remained erect. It did. This pertness remained the case throughout the entire lovely experience that followed, except for the odd minute of deflation when (1) I pictured my friend’s people in Philadelphia reading this and (2) I found myself thinking about how much Vanity Fair writers are paid.
Fireworks. The earth moved in an enriched but orderly direction, and Pfizer’s stock went up a few more points, I trust. By morning, the redness was gone from my face. I called Dr. Lamm and reported. He said the redness was nothing unusual.
So much for Viagra, then. Been there. Did that.
What else? Side effects? Besides the redness of face, nothing. No rush. No palpitations. No jitteriness. Just some concern about taking any drug I do not need to save my life. Worries about becoming dependent. Issues of entitlement. The voice that says stick to ginger. The voice that says get thee to a monastery, rather than a bedroom.
“So what did you do with the rest of the pills?” a friend asked the morning after. “Throw them away?”
No comment.