Pi-Consulting

The last wonder-drug to change socio-sexual behaviour in Spain this much was probably aspirin, that ready answer to “Not tonight, querido, I have a headache”. Now it’s the turn of the Viagra generation. Spain’s leading sexologist, Dr. Carlos San Martin, rather poetically calls it “an explosion”. On one widely-reported occasion, a man pulled a convincing-looking water-pistol (surely a symbolic choice of weapon?) in a Madrid pharmacy, and demanded their entire stock of the performance-enhancing blue pills. He was back two hours later to present the astonished lady-pharmacists with a large bouquet of roses. Which was when they arrested him. However, his enthusiasm for Viagra marks a widespread social phenomenon. Pfizer sold a million boxes last year, the equivalent of one pack for every 17 adult male Spaniards. Individual pills have changed hands at discos and parties for $80 apiece, often paired with tabs of Extacy. Women badger their boyfriends to get prescriptions, putting a new twist between the sexes on sexual liberation. Sociologists attribute the trend to Spain shrugging off the conservatism and sexual repression of the Franco era, with the afternoon siesta now giving ground to an energetic quest for ‘nookie’. However, there seem to be limits to the miracles Viagra can sustain. A lady IT professional in her mid-40s recently dumped her psychologist boyfriend, ten years her senior, for a 32-year-old unemployed athlete, despite the older man’s obedient commitment to swallowing frequent doses of Viagra. “Now I get sex six times a day”, said Carmen. “But I do miss going to the opera”. Source: The New York Times, Pi.