ITS ONLY MY BODY - NEVER MIND
The New York Times - 12/4/2005 - printed a story titled: "SALES of DRUGS for IMPOTENCE DECLINE, DEFYING ADVERTIZING and EARLY EXPECTATIONS. The story indicates that despite an estimated $400 million spent in 2004 to promote Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra, "new prescriptions in October were down about 10 percent from a year ago."
What particularly upsets the drug companies is the fact that the drugs "work about 70 percent of the time" and "have relatively few side effects."
The article states " while the drugs have helped millions, many impotent men have simply decided not to take medicine to improve their ability to have sex." (Dr. Abraham Morgenthaler, associate professior of urology at Harvard Medical School.)
The article offers a number of possible reasons to account for the notable decline in sales. These include:
- A link to a rare form of blindness
- The degree of pleasure associated with the drugs is "exaggerated"
- "The market is saturated"
- "{Many} grown men have gotten used to sexless relationships"
- {Many} en are "no longer interested in intercourse"
- {Some} men lose their partners due to death and or disease
- Over saturated ads
Ever optimistic but realistic about an increase in sales the article concludes with a commentary by a Cialis marketeer: " We still stand very positively on the growth of this marketplace... But clearly it is not going to be the level that some people had thought." (Mr. Beebe)
As a psychotherapist what I find of most significance is the apparent mystification of the manufacturers as to why their drug cure seems to be suffering from its own form of impotence. I think they actually know better and if not they should take a course in basic psychology.
What is notably left off this list of possible explanations is even the slightest nod to the intimate relationship between psyche and soma when it comes to matters of sexuality. The drug companies promote the absurd idea that when it comes to sex the most important organ is the penis. Any honest person past the age of 15 knows this is simply not true. The truth is that the most important organ associated with sexuality is the mind.
Most experienced people, I imagine, would testify in court that if and when they are anxious, insecure, mad, sad, and the like, despite their hope that good sex will be helpful and indeed possible, find that their good intentions often fall flat when put to the test.
Additionally, if one dares to enter into the unconscious minds of some truth seekers who complain of impotence {euphemistically referred to as erectile dysfunction} there is often found to be exceedingly complicated reasons why it is often difficult to get it up, and or keep it up, and or get it in, and, or to be able to complete the task at hand.
Among these unconscious contributors to impotence are:
- A fear of entrapment
- Hostility
- The penis is unconsciously equated with a weapon (sword, knife}
- Castration anxiety
- A fear of engulfment
- A fear of failure
- A fear of success
- A fear of loss of control
- A fear of intimacy
- A fear that if successful more will be expected
- An unconscious need to withhold
Assuming that sex is not simply getting it up, in, sustained, and completed but that , instead, it is intimately associated with a complex psychological context, it is no wonder that simply popping a pill or two is often insufficient to enable one to consistently realize the unconflicted idealized fantasies of a normal 15 year old inexperienced adolescent.
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