IN the brave new world of author Aldous Huxley, Soma was the drug everyone clamored for. In the brave real world of today, Viagra is becoming the drug of the masses. Viagra? Eddie
would take itViagra is the hot new drug that helps impotent men become potent and semi-impotent men become mo'potent.
Most drugs come with warning lables. Viagra is the first drug to come with its own phrase: "So to speak."
The reason is that it's impossible to carry on any discussion about a drug that involves sexual function without unintentionally inserting double entendres into the conversation. Every conversation about Viagra becomes inflated, so to speak, with the phrase "so to speak."
"This is the biggest thing, so to speak, to happen for men in years," intoned fellow columnist and radio show host Eddie Sherman last week on morning radio.
Eddie had been featured in an enormous, so to speak, front-page Star-Bulletin article on Viagra. As the local Viagra poster boy, he gleefully speaks out about the miracle drug whose company stock has swelled dramatically, so to speak, in recent weeks.
Eddie was explaining to KHVH radio host Rick Hamada why he decided to go public with his use of Viagra. He even dragged along his urologist to supply the ins and outs, so to speak, of how Viagra works.
Eddie concedes that becoming the point man, so to speak, for Viagra has caused him to be ribbed a lot by his friends. He contends that men's inflated egos, so to speak, keep them from honestly discussing the subject.
He's right. For men, sexual dysfunction is a touchy subject, so to speak. And in the past, dealing with the problem could prove exceedingly humiliating, not to mention, downright painful. Men who came to grips, so to speak, with their problem usually faced either a surgically implanted pump thingy to help them perform in the sexual arena or were forced to inject themselves with a drug in the part of the body that is not generally needle-friendly.
Eddie just wants to strip away, so to speak, the stigma of male impotence. The fact that Viagra has erupted into the public spotlight shows that what we knew previously about male sexual dysfunction was just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
Not all health insurance companies are covering the cost of Viagra for their members, so to speak. But guys who would have a heart attack before paying out of their pocket for cardiac medicine are buying up Viagra at 10 bucks a pop, so to speak.
One of the dramatic, unanticipated side affects of marketing Viagra is that urologists are suddenly cool.
Until now, the only thing a urologist could offer patients was bad news, worse news and painful probes in order to determine even more horrendous news. Now they can prescribe magic bullets that can put aging cowboys back in the saddle again. Urologists will soon replace neurologists and orthoscopic surgeons at all the hottest parties. Men can do without brains and kneecaps as long as they know that the south shall rise again, so to speak.
And Viagra is not only for men. It turns out it apparently has interesting effects on women who take it. There's probably a tasteful way to describe how Viagra affects women but frankly, I don't need that kind of trouble this early in the morning.
Concluding their discussion of Viagra, Eddie and Rick moved on to a discussion of Jim Nabors, who would be Eddie's guest on his Saturday radio program.
"Does Nabors still have that 500-acre macadamia tree plantation on Maui?" asked Rick.
"Sure," said Eddie. "He's been growing nuts for years." So to speak.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
The Honolulu Lite online archive is at:
http://archives.starbulletin.com/lite