Via Historiann, the Denver Post's Mary Winter calls attention to yet another instance of the "no-sex" class paradigm in action
Now, you would not know it from the $300-million annual ad campaign for erection-enhancing ads for Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, but women suffer more sexual dysfunction than men do — 43 percent to 31 percent, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In other words, the potential market for flagging female libidos is huge. But here’s the irony: When the makers of Zestra went to 100 television networks and stations to buy ads, the vast majority refused them. The few stations that did take their money would run the ads only after midnight or during the daytime.
Source: Denver Post
I haven't mentioned the bogus Two Rules of Desire lately but this looks like another classic instance of Rule #1: It is simultaneously inconcievable and intolerable for a woman to have sexual desire.
And seriously, how else to parse this? According to Winter, anyway, in clinical trials Zestra's roughly as effective a libido-enhancer for women as Viagra is an erection-enhancer for men. It also has less perilous side effects.
And according to just about everything one reads from Cosmopolitan magazine to Ross Douthat to evolutionary psychologists to, well, Mary Winter, women's libidos need boosting if they're going to keep up with men, right? And goodness knows men are supposed to be always on the prowl for the elusive horny woman.
So here's a product you'd think would be tailor made for media advertisement (goodness knows they're unrestrained in their enthusiasm for Viagra.) And yet...
And yet...
I think "if" is the key word here. If society was really interested in women with higher libidos then you'd expect to see more interest in products like Zestra. But on the other hand if society found the prospect of women's libidos simultaneously inconceivable and intolerable you'd... see pretty much the behavior we're seeing.
Important note: The purpose of Historiann post wasn't to question how sex-related medications are promoted but to ask why the heck Winter prefaced her clear annoyance with the phrase "And not to go all feminist on anyone, but..."
Personally I have no idea how that's supposed to strengthen Winter's case.
You didn't quote as much of
Submitted by Sungold (not verified) on Mon, 2010-12-20 20:13.You didn't quote as much of the Denver Post article as Historiann did, but if you read the whole thing, you can spot the same conflation that mars much of the reporting on "pink viagra." The reporter refers to both arousal and libido. Zestra is intended to enhance arousal and response during sexual activity, as far as I understand it. It may increase desire in the heat of the moment. It doesn't act directly on libido, though I could imagine if sex is more pleasurable, some women might want it more. As far as I can see without having tried it myself, it looks like it might increase engorgement and/or creaste prickling sensations in a nice way.
In other words, its intent and action are entirely different than flibanserin, the drug recently rejected by the FDA for ineffectiveness. Flibanserin was supposed to increase libido.
As far as I know, there's nothing yet on the market that specifically helps women who only desire sex once in a blue moon. For some women, hormore therapy (sometimes including testosterone as well as estrogen) delivers a libido boost. But there's no drug that specifically targets libido. Also, the testing for Zestra relied on women who committed to have sex eight times in a month, so it's unlikely many of them had a really low libido.
I have been meaning to try Zestra just for the fun of it, since it sounds like its potential benefits might not be limited to people suffering from difficulty with arousal ... and I'm always willing to help advance science! I'd be curious about how it might affect a male partner, too.
As a male who has tried
Submitted by Thaddeus Blanchette (not verified) on Tue, 2010-12-21 06:51.As a male who has tried viagra, let me state my opinion that it doesn't increase libido, either.
It aids in constricting the blood vessels and in achieving and maintaining an erection. If you have no sexual stimulus, it will not GIVE you an erection. Viagra, for example, won't make a straight guy want to start humping other men or a gay guy go after women. It does exactly NOTHING to your libido. In short, it does not cause you to want to have sex, it just makes it easier for you to have active penetrative sex if that's what you already want.
In other words, viagra just makes it easier for you to get it up and keep it up, which is a big issue for a lot of men who are 40+ and still want the sexual perfomance of a 20 year old. Viagra does NOT make you horny.
It's a measure of how little we actually know or care about male sexuality (aside from the active, penetrative perfomance of it) that all three instances of commentary on this news item - the original article, Historiann and Figleaf) have casually associated viagra with libido enhancement.
Of course, one could argue that men have so bought into the active, penetrative performance model of sexuality that an erection, to them, is effectively libido enhancement: "Hey, I got a hard-on. Now I gotta fuck." But that's another point for another time.
(BtW, this isn't meant to be snode commentary re: the original articles. Hell, I've also done the same many a time. I'm just pointing out how easily we slide over to presuming that erection enhancement is libido enhancement for men.)
Hi Sungold. You're right, I
Submitted by figleaf on Tue, 2010-12-21 09:03.Hi Sungold. You're right, I did conflate the two. And they are pretty different. One's theoretically meant to enable ability, with the assumption that interest is present. And yes, as far as I know there's no specific equivalent to that for women. Unless lube counts, which it probably shouldn't. The other sort of presumes ability is present but aims to treat interest. And as Thaddeus says, below, there's nothing like that for men either (though maybe Zestra's promoters should consider clinically trying that.)
But at another level the interest/ability is just nuance on the question of "sexual difficulty." So unless someone's prepared to tell me that television advertising sales reps, or vice-presidents of sales departments, or the average television viewer knows and cares that Viagra concerns only hydraulics I'm sticking to my guns. Especially since I'm pretty sure a product for women that did directly correspond to Viagra, even a pharmaceutical rather than botanical one, probably wouldn't get much airtime either.
Thanks, Sungold,
fl
The marketing people want to
Submitted by Sungold (not verified) on Tue, 2010-12-21 14:20.The marketing people want to lasso *everyone* - heck, they'd sell Viagra to asexual folks if they could figure out a way! So it's clearly in their interest to keep blurring the distinctions.
As far as I can see, if Zestra lives up to its claims (and I don't know how much is hype), and if I understand how it works (by increasing physiological engorgement), it would be an analog to Viagra. It would work on the hydraulics. So it's not the case that "there's nothing like that for men." It's flibanserin that doesn't have an equivalent for men. (That's assuming that flibanserin does what it's intended to do, which it apparently does not. The studies on its effectiveness were pretty underwhelming. That's why it failed to get FDA approval).
I am pretty sure that a female correlate to Viagra would find its way onto TV. I'm not at all sure that sexism explains why Zestra ads were turned down. If a powerful company like Pfizer were marketing it, I bet it would find a slot on TV, especially if ads for the "female Viagra" were part of a package deal with ads for other products. The pharma giants just have too much market power to be sidelined. You can be sure, though, that the ads would be even more treacly than the Cialis twin bathtub ads.
So, I hadn't heard of Zetstra
Submitted by Plymouth (not verified) on Mon, 2010-12-20 21:43.So, I hadn't heard of Zetstra and I looked it up. "Botanical Oils and Extracts"? Uhhh, yeah, and snake oil in the mix? This hardly sounds like a viagra analogue. There are dozens of "natural sexual enhancers" like this out there, for men and women, and none of them get primetime TV advertisements.
Once again you're using your "two rules" hammer and this isn't actually a nail.
Oh, hey, and then I was at
Submitted by Plymouth (not verified) on Tue, 2010-12-21 09:58.Oh, hey, and then I was at the drug store this morning and I saw a bunch of "KY Intense" and I remembered that I've seen ads for that ALL OVER primetime!
You mean there are no snake
Submitted by fiveofnine (not verified) on Thu, 2010-12-23 05:54.You mean there are no snake oil sales on TV?
I had the same thought as
Submitted by Knitting Clio (not verified) on Tue, 2010-12-21 12:57.I had the same thought as Plymouth -- and the KY commercials make a big point about pleasing both women and men.
As to trying Zestra, Caveat emptor:
http://www.coreynahman.com/zestra_investigation.html
"43% of women are sexually
Submitted by SlightlyMetaphysical (not verified) on Thu, 2010-12-23 02:55."43% of women are sexually dysfunctional"
I've always loved that statistic. It's a complete gem. Because no-one who uses it ever stops to consider- if almost half of women are dysfunctional, maybe we need to question what functionality looks like?
Sungold, "heck, they'd sell Viagra to asexual folks if they could figure out a way!"
Believe me, we know it. And for the out and proud, they'd have to hold our noses and shove it down our throats (libedo enhancer, that is, which others have pointed out is completely different from Viagra), but the asexuals who don't know it, who just feel broken and alone... now, there's a market.
/bitter