The truth about men’s Viagra et al and women’s Zestra doesn’t appear to be as well publicized as the product. None, none of these products work unless the user “wants” to have sex with his/her partner. The lack of response even when the rx is taken properly will not outperform the user if the user is not really wanting to perform.
Desire is elusive. So many books have been written, so many theories put forward. No one really knows. Sometimes the most argumentative, conflict ridden couples have fabulous sex lives. We know that the most blissful couples, do not appear to have blissful sex. Why is that?
No medicine, yet, has been able to deliver. No aphrodisiac exists, still, in this day and age. The remedies that normalize blood flow levels for adequate erections, the tingle in the labia or surrounding tissue, can be manufactured by these drugs, but the appetite, is a different story.
Buyer beware. Desire in women appears to be a much more complex subject than in men but it does cross gender lines. These potions do work — if you really want them to work. If there are conflicts and resentments etc., no amount of alchemy will mix up the needed potion.
Medications are to correct physical and psychological imbalances and deficiencies. There is no known pharmacologic cure for an intimacy imbalance.
In other words, there is no free lunch — not anywhere.
When these medications, or wonder drugs,came on the market colleagues of mine worried it would mean the end of our specialty practices. I am a PHD, Marriage and Sex Therapist in private practice, Connecticut based — for 29 years.
What actually happened was that the usage of the viagras (cyalis, levitra) created a relationship distress that did just the opposite. It built our practices. The drug companies never really took enough time to explain to patients that sex didn’t happen in a vacuum. Their relationships, satisfying sexually or no, had a rhythm and balance of its own. Walking into an established partnership and dramatically changing the landscape is not a good recipe for success.
For instance, in older couples or in couples where the man has had erection problems, the script is very familiar. One night the man walks out of the bedroom after dinner and gets into bed and what do you know — a little closeness with his wife and he has a hard erection. She is totally flummoxed, frightened, stunned. Of course, he never told her he was doing this and just assumed she’d be thrilled. Hello? The woman is unprepared, accustomed to the relatioship as it’s been, not physically “ready” and furious that he never discussed this with her.
It has been said that there are just as many prescriptions for viagra as there are patients who never refill them!
Much of this could have been bypassed if their were some education. Its a huge failure that men were never educated to understand that their partners, in long term committed relationships , require more than an erect penis to want sex.
So an erection does not forecast Desire. Arousing a woman to want to have contact is more work than just swallowing a pill would suggest. Absent desire is not a disease on a physical level, in most cases, its a failure of relationship.
