Viagra, the accidental wonder drug, which is 25 years old, transformed the love life of millions. But with anxiety and porn addiction on the rise, are men using it to avoid facing up to their problems?
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Mary Sharpe, chief executive of the Reward Foundation, a relationships and sex education charity, draws a link between the growth of erectile dysfunction and streamed pornography. “This is the first generation who’ve had access to unlimited adult content from a young age,” she says. “They’ve become desensitised. They can’t get aroused with a real partner because they’re overstimulated by what they see on the screen. So it’s an arousal dysfunction rather than an erectile dysfunction.”
Sharpe cites a 2020 study of young Belgian and Danish men by Gunter de Win, a Belgian professor of urology, which found a correlation between porn consumption and erectile function. “There is no doubt that porn conditions the way we view sex,” said de Win. “Only 65 per cent of men felt sex with a partner was more exciting than watching porn.” For these men, at least, cutting out the porn will remove the need for Viagra, says Sharpe.
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