Viagra: A Call of Duty

A question was asked whether or not a “viagra for women” would be as successful as viagra for men. Viagra, in case you didn’t know, is used mostly for male erectile dysfunction, the other use is hypertension. Sexual dysfunction is a potential 5-billion-dollar plus market. A recent article in The Journal of the American Medical Association, reported that 43 percent of women suffer from sexual dysfunction, compared with 31 percent of men. So theoretically, if a drug company was to develop a “viagra for women” it would be successful…right?

Does a man take viagra because of his sexual needs or is it because he believes it is a sense of duty? A duty to satisfy his woman. So are the high viagra sales due to men or women? The high viagra sales is due to a mixture of the male desire to have sex as well as his desire to please his woman.

A woman who wants to satisfy her man, really does not need to do anything but lie there. She doesn’t need to be erect as a man does in order to satisfy her partner. Would a “viagra for women” surpass sales of that for men? No way. Men buy viagra for two reasons: sex and a sense of duty. Women would buy a “viagra for women” for one reason: her own sexual pleasure. Another question to ask is how much of the female sexual frustration is purely based on a male’s inability to perform as opposed to the female’s inability to?

With that said, a “viagra for women” would probably have less sales than that for men. A 55-year-old nurse at Stanford Hospital said she, and virtually every woman she knows, would like to try Viagra, hoping that it would increase her sexual pleasure. If a “viagra for women” has the ability to physically and psychologically improve a woman’s experience during sexual encounters (i.e. multiple orgasms), then sales would hit the top. Otherwise, merely fixing the physical attributes just doesn’t cut it. Why would anyone take a pill to produce lubrication when they can just go buy some lubrication over-the-counter? Sex for women is more complicated – it deals with both physical and psychological needs.