Late Victorian men and women went to exhaustive lengths to avoid
pregnancies and STDs. Black market condoms and other forms of birth control were
desired enough to risk jail time and hefty fines. The popularity of these
illegal obscenities were used mostly for controlling family sizes or to ensure safety
during sexual promiscuity.
Casanova was a prime example of the manly man who was not
interested in illegitimate children, nor VD. Casanova was an embodiment of male
sexual dominance and virility, but imagine if he was not so charming or could
not, you know, get it up? The modern fix would, of course, be Viagra!
We have all see a Viagra commercial, each is more or less
the same. Sexy women tell the viewers how important it is that the men be ready
when the urge hits. There are men in the commercials, but you never see their
faces. Not once. Men go around doing ‘manly’ tasks as if to prove that they are
men, but they cannot be caught dead being associated with erectile dysfunction.
Men and women used to be largely concerned with unwanted
pregnancy and STDs, but those issues have never manifested into commercials. Tone
referred to a cultural shift after WWI where Americans recognized the “emasculating
effects of sexual prohibition” (112). This lead to the common phrase “boys will
be boys” where men were expected to have insatiable ravenous and carnal desires.
Women, on the other hand, are left out of the discussion.
Where condom and other contraceptives started as a means to
control family size, Viagra almost insists that men and women need to have more
sex. Women are hyper-sexualized and are the partner that wants sex; a far cry
from the post WWI idea that men are the ravenous beings. If men are in the
commercial, they are rather passive. Men are depicted doing ‘manly’ activities,
but they are hardly ever placed in the bedroom. That venue is expressly the
place for the woman.
It is not striking that Viagra uses an attractive woman to
promote a product, but they take the idea that sex can even sell a fix to a
medical issue. The commercials attempt to normalize erectile dysfunction by
stating that half of men over 40 experience some form of ED, yet we do not see
a male representative. Since the issue is directly a male issue, meaning that
it affects the anatomy of a male, wouldn’t you want a man to tell you what it’s
like? Just imagine a male representative talking about vaginal yeast infections
or cervical cancer, it just would not connect to a female audience.
So, why the need to protect the male image by pawning their
issue off on a woman to market? It goes back to Tone’s idea that sexual
prohibitions emasculate men. By placing an attractive woman on the screen to
tell male viewers that it is okay to have ED somehow saves their masculinity.
Men can feel secure that they are the ravenous being that nature so intended,
even if their equipment doesn’t live up to the standard 100% of the time. Quite
a shift from sexual prohibition to a public endorsement of sex in the media.
I think that this topic needs to be addressed further. It had honestly never registered with me just how strange it was for a woman to be telling a man about what’s best for his penis. It is certainly ridiculous that women are used to advertise a product for a product geared exclusively toward men, especially if that product is meant to fix a legitimate medical condition. However, I think that we can go deeper into this issue by analyzing the ties that exist between men’s virility and their perceived worth as human beings in general.
ReplyDeleteAfter looking through several Viagra ads on Youtube (my ‘recommended’ list is now very interesting), I noticed that while the vast majority of the ads were women scantily clad in blue nightgowns, a few of the ads were of men doing things that are seen as generally rugged, such as starting a fire with a knife and rock or fixing an engine. Essentially, these men are faced with a problem, and they solve it in the manliest way possible. The ads are, essentially, telling the men that there is something very wrong with them and that it needs to be addressed if they want to be manly, and thanks to toxic masculinity that’s all that men are supposed to want.
In the ads which do contain women, they are clearly oversexed. One ad said something along the lines of “Curling up with your favorite book is fine; but most women I know would rather curl up with their favorite man”. The woman’s intonation implies that she doesn’t mean cuddling. This is telling men that their significant other clearly wants sex, and is showing him a way to artificially get his ability to have an erection back. To me, at least, this sends a clear message: “Do it for her, because she’s not satisfied”.
Going beyond Viagra, let’s look at another product geared toward men and their penises: Enzyte. Remember those annoying whistling commercials with that smiling Bob guy? They haven’t been aired in years, but I’m sure we’ve all seen them. In these commercials, a man named Bob has a large grin on his face and goes about being happy while other men around him look forlorn or bored with life. In one commercial, Bob waves happily to a neighbor who is watering his garden. Then neighbor’s hose then goes limp, and he looks disappointed. So, according to these commercials, men need to be able to get and maintain erections just to be happy. This is strengthened by a line from the commercial: “What did he get? Why, a big boost of confidence, a little more self-esteem, and a very happy missus at home!” Bob’s wife also looks ridiculously happy while the other women in the commercial look perpetually unimpressed. Once again, this relates to the “do it for her” mentality, though these commercials do at least focus on other reasons why men would want to try the drug. Other Enzyte commercials show Bob doing well at work. His boss vigorously shakes his hand when he displays a recent peak in company earnings, which can presumably be attributed to his success in the bedroom with Enzyte. In another (very racist) commercial, a group of Japanese businessmen go to meet Bob, and they stare in amazement at the large pair of shoes that he leaves at the front door. Once they are in the room, they begin to negotiate, and they are so intimidated by him that they give him five times their original offer.
These commercials essentially tell men that in order to be the best version of themselves, they need to be able to have long-lasting erections. If a man can’t be sexual anymore, then he must do something to fix it or he (and his woman) will be unsatisfied with life in general because he cannot perform as well in areas outside the bedroom either. In essence, these commercials prey on men’s insecurities and reduce them to their virility. If they don’t have that, they don’t have anything. We need to focus on how these commercials impact men and their esteem, and stop reducing them to their ability to have erections.