The Guardian has a thought-provoking article about the race to develop a replacement for Viagra. [guard]
I could probably stop there, but the article interests me: its premise is that a replacement for Viagra is needed. Naturally, a better drug for to help people deal with erectile dysfunction is a good thing, but better is not the point:
However, this will soon come to an end, as in 2020, Pfizer’s remaining patents on Viagra expire for good. A whole host of generic versions have emerged in the past six years, often in quirky forms such as mint strips or breath sprays, as Pfizer’s grip on the rights to the drug has slowly loosened. Soon, these are expected to flood the market, as manufacturers jostle for a slice of the pie.
Ohhhh, so what’s needed is not a better drug for patient outcomes. What’s needed is a better market control vehicle. Because Pfizer wants to monetize all those boners and unless they are able to corner the market, they’re going to stop making gigantic numbers of billions of dollars and will settle down to making mere handfuls of billions.
It’s interesting how The Guardian suddenly reads as though it’s copy/pasting a bunch of talking points from a Pfizer press release:
This will make Viagra more accessible and cheaper, but for the millions of men worldwide with erectile dysfunction, it could also spell good news in the form of much needed treatment innovations.
Isn’t “more accessible and cheaper” better?
See what’s going on there? Now that the gigantic revenue pipeline is threatened, Pfizer now plans to explore new innovations. It didn’t before. Why would it? It had the gigantic revenue pipeline. Remember how capitalism is supposed to make for more efficient markets? Excuse me while I laugh. I thought that the whole idea of research and development is that you undertake it as a constant process to bring newer better products to market – you’re gambling that you’ll hit on something that returns you a gigantic revenue pipeline (as Viagra did) it’s not something that you only do when it looks like your existing revenue pipeline might sputter out and die.
It’s disappointing that The Guardian article didn’t even question Pfizer’s marketing department’s claims:
The need for better treatments is particularly pressing as erectile dysfunction appears to be getting more common, with the global prevalence set to pass 300 million by the middle of the next decade. Scientists have long argued about whether this is simply due to men becoming more open in reporting their problems, or a by-product of other health problems. One thing is clear: the market is growing.
Why is that might be a good thing to research. What if it’s a behavioral problem? Perhaps global climate catastrophe is making men limp? Perhaps its the ever-popular blame-catchers: comic books, video games, or marijuana. Or, perhaps whoever did that survey included reported instances of “erectile dysfunction” due to alcohol – a well-known problem since the dawn of recorded history. There’s another problem: perhaps “erectile dysfunction” means that you expect to be able to have a boner any time you want it, and if that doesn’t happen, something is wrong with the world. Is what’s measured “erectile dysfunction” or entitlement?
There’s a deeper fallacy in all of this: Pfizer is saying “the market for erectile dysfunction medicine keeps growing” at the same time as they are saying “we keep expanding that market!” Well, yes! Maybe one of the reasons that 300 million people have requested medication for erectile dysfunction is because Pfizer has been advertising “erections on demand, never mind the increased risk of stroke or heart attack!” Maybe there’s a connection, there. I’m just being a skeptic, I can’t help myself sometimes.
Here’s another question that would be interesting to research: if they are using prescription rates as a proxy for actual cases of erectile dysfunction then what the hell is going on in Massachussets, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island? Is it something in the water? Alex Jones needs to get on this: East Coast Liberal Elites have “man problems”, apparently.
I recall reading somewhere that Saudi Arabia is a huge market for Viagra. Perhaps the drug’s sales are a statistical proxy for toxic masculinity/patriarchy. [I believe those terms are redundant]
While a handful of pharma companies have attempted and failed to get rival drugs into the clinic, the sheer scale of the Viagra profit machine created a monopoly, with most companies shying away from the challenge, perceiving it as too much of a risk.
Sounds like more of capitalism making markets better. But they’re not serving the customer. Please stop pretending to care.
The article goes on at some length, repeatedly making the point that none of the current approaches help for people with nerve damage. I had a friend with mesothelioma that had that happen: the chemo/radiation they put him through wiped out the nerves from his brain to his nether regions, and that was that. Unfortunately, for patients in his situation, they’re not a big enough market that will return the kind of paybacks that Viagra did, so capitalism says “tough luck on that one, mate!” and runs off searching for the next gigantic revenue pipeline.
I used to know a guy who took Viagra and Ecstacy, because apparently it gives a great big rush. I guess cocaine and amyl nitrate aren’t hip anymore. But that shit messed him up; he used to be bright and sharp and quick and now he’s a shambling mess titrating himself out of serotonin syndrome with various antidepressants. He’s Pfizer’s target customer, in other words.
Alternative hypothesis: since the scale is Viagra prescriptions as a percentage of total prescriptions, maybe the men in those states just have fewer other health problems? (Also, you missed Hawaii, which looks to be the record-holder.)
Marcus wrote: “There’s a deeper fallacy in all of this.”
Also, I imagine, a deeper phallusy. Or so Pfizer hopes.
The upcoming Viagrapocalypse for Pfizer is probably why I’ve been seeing more TV ads for it lately. Keep the name in people’s heads so they won’t go generic.
As far as booze and limpness goes Brewers Droop was the name of a band Mark Knopfler was a member of for a bit in the early ’70s. It also gets referenced in the lyrics for Dire Straits 1982 single “Industrial Disease,” along with smoker’s cough and Bette Davis knees.
timgueguen@#3:
Brewers Droop
That’s really good.
I love Dire Straits and I did not know any of that, so thanks for brightening my morning.
ahcuah@#2:
Also, I imagine, a deeper phallusy.
We are balls-deep in fallacies here!
I hate to kind of come to the defence of Pfizer, but…
Not if you’re one of the “60-70% of people [who] have some degree of dissatisfaction with them”.
To a whole bunch of men, the fact that you have to take it an hour ahead of time and it gives you stomach cramps and headaches is WAY secondary to the fact that (at first) it gives you a guaranteed boner that works and lasts like no boner you’ve ever had before. And while it’s cool to mention toxic masculinity, it would also be cool to recognise how big a deal being able to actually have satisfying sex again would be to a man who hadn’t been able to manage it for months or years.
Re: the cause of increased erectile dysfunction: check out Jon Ronson’s excellent podcast “The Butterfly Effect” (http://www.jonronson.com/butterfly.html) . Correlation is not causation, but it’s notable that the massive increase in men presenting with erectile dysfunction (and in particular YOUNG men presenting with what has historically been an older man’s problem) coincides not just with the wide availability of a drug that will (temporarily) fix it, but also with the ubiquitous availability of free, high definition streaming pornography. The suggestion is that porn anytime, anywhere, with endless novelty, conditions the brain to expect sexual stimulation from a succession of different “partners” that perfectly meets one’s tastes, on demand, and if real life partners don’t meet those raised expectations, performance suffers.
Some academic tried to do a study investigating the effect on young men’s sexual response of exposure from a young age to “high quality” porn (compared to previous decades when you had to get off to a few grubby pages of Razzle you found in a hedge). I say “tried” because such a study would require a control group of boys/young men who had not been exposed to porn, and they couldn’t find any. Viagra is an imperfect solution to a problem possibly created by MindGeek.
I’m disappointed. Can you see yourself pointing this kind of sniggering ridicule at the treatments post-menopausal women use to continue to comfortably have sex? I can’t.
A better drug than viagra is certainly needed – one which minimizes the risk of heart attack and can be safely taken by people with heart problems or who are taking nitrates. Cialis and Levitra have broadly the same drawbacks (Cialis is already available as generic and Levitra will be soon).
And you can be sure that Pfizer and GSK and Bayer and Eli Lilly have already invested research dollars into finding a better drug. When it takes a billion dollars and 10+ years to discover a new drug, it’s not the sort of thing you can scramble last-minute for.
I believe “brewers droop” refers to the side effects of chronic exposure to very large quantities of hops, which contain phytoestrogens that can mimic estrogen in the body with the expected results. Quite a distinct effect from the alcohol thing.
sonofrojblake@#6
I tend to be cautious whenever I hear yet another attempt to prove that porn is harmful. Conservative people have an a priori belief that porn is bad, because their God said so. Thus they are also strongly invested in proving that porn is bad. First came the idea that porn is bad, next they are doing research about the effects of porn on people. For this reason I’m taking with a grain of salt attempts to prove that porn has negative impact on people’s sex lives, because people who try to research this question usually start out with some beliefs of their own and afterwards their research might be subject to unconscious (or even intentional) biases. It’s not like scientists who research porn are doing so with a neutral mindset for the sake of plain scientific curiosity.
Anyway, I know that having access to porn improves my own sex life. Porn movies have motivated me to experiment with various things and try something new. That’s obviously better than sticking with the missionary position all the time.
Moreover, if I have watched some porn the previous week, I tend to have better sex compared to when I haven’t watched any porn for months. My partner lives in another city, we usually meet once or twice per week. Watching porn makes me think about sex and results in me looking forward to meeting him more intensely than I would normally do if I didn’t watch porn and didn’t think about sex that much. Watching porn makes me think about sex, and thinking about sex makes me want to have some. It gets me in the mood. This effect isn’t limited to porn videos only. Even something as mundane as reading sex toy reviews would have the exact same effect on me; anything that makes me think about sex works this way.
Of course, I’m aware that a significant portion of porn videos are choreographed and show very athletic porn stars. I understand that a lot of the things they can do wouldn’t be practical or even possible for me. Porn isn’t always meant to be that realistic. I never feel disappointed by the fact that we the average people cannot bend like that amazingly flexible chick in the video could. Nor am I disappointed that majority of humanity don’t look as hot as the actors who are selected for their good looks. I don’t have a problem with keeping my own expectations realistic.
I assume that watching porn could influence people differently based on what kind of videos they watch and how often they do it. Anyway, I don’t buy the claim that watching porn is always bad for one’s sex life due to creating unrealistic expectations.
sonofrojblake@ #6: … porn anytime… conditions the brain to expect sexual stimulation from a succession of different “partners” that perfectly meets one’s tastes, on demand, and if real life partners don’t meet those raised expectations, performance suffers.
I have long held the hypothesis that advertising and entertainment have the same effect: when the average man looks around at the average friends and average women in his life, and compares them to the witty, pretty, casts seen hour after hour on the idiot box, that average man may well feel depressed or angry – especially at the women – for not measuring up to Hollywood standards, and lash out accordingly.
Whether porn exacerbates this general effect, I dunno, but researching the detail without looking at the context probably won’t tell us much.
“I don’t buy the claim that watching porn is always bad for one’s sex life”
Neither do I. Do, please, point to where I or anyone else made such a claim.
I seem to remember stating that no research was possible in principle because the responsible scientists who wanted to do it recognised that they couldn’t for lack of a control group. Is that bit of my post above not visible in your browser or something?
sonofrojblake@#11
Simply prefacing your hypothesis with “correlation is not causation and no research was possible in principle” doesn’t exempt it from criticism. It only indicates that you understand some possible problems with your own hypothesis (which is obviously a good thing). You proposed a hypothesis that the wide availability of online porn might be resulting in people becoming unable to get an erection with a partner and thus buying Viagra. I said that your hypothesis seems fishy and, in my opinion, unlikely.
I have a tendency to carefully pick my words when making claims. “Porn is good for everybody’s sex lives” is an example of a claim that cannot be defended. Somebody else would only need to find a single case where it was detrimental for a single person, and my original claim is already disproven. “Porn is good for many people’s sex lives” is easier to defend, because finding a single counter example no longer disproves this claim. This is why I wrote “I don’t buy the claim that watching porn is always bad for one’s sex life.”
Anyway, to reiterate, you claimed that: “The suggestion is that porn anytime, anywhere, with endless novelty, conditions the brain to expect sexual stimulation from a succession of different “partners” that perfectly meets one’s tastes, on demand, and if real life partners don’t meet those raised expectations, performance suffers.” I disagree with this claim and I find it unlikely.
Pierce R. Butler @#10
I wouldn’t want to have as friends most of the fictional characters that I see in movies or read about in books. They survive on screen only thanks to plot armor. I wouldn’t want to have as a friend somebody who is risking their life on a daily basis. I wouldn’t want to constantly worry about a friend’s safety. Sure, reading about such a character’s adventures might be interesting, but I wouldn’t like that kind of excitement (aka worrying) in real life. I wouldn’t want to have as a friend even the average character from some comedy. Sure, their antics are fun to watch for two hours, but I wouldn’t like having such a person in my everyday life for a prolonged period of time.
Andreas Avester @ # 13: I wouldn’t want to have as friends most of the fictional characters that I see in movies…
Yabbut (a) you seem to have thought it through, and (b) you didn’t address the eye-candy/sex-tease aspect of wholesale video amusements in which most first-world populations swim. Trying to lead a reasonable life in the world of thrillers or even rom-com would get stressful before the first day wrapped up – but when you see that only as tantalizing glimpses, the grass on your own side of the fence can look very yellow.
I submit this causes a lot of people a lot of frustration, subconscious but harmful.
I’m with Andreas, I wouldn’t want most fictional characters I see on TV as friends, the only thing I about them I would like for my friends is the jobs that give them so much time to hang out together. I know that is as unrealistic as the rest of the lives depicted, but I would like more time with my friends that real life makes impossible.
Pierce R. Butler @#14
When it comes to friends, I don’t care how sexy their bodies look like. I don’t pick friends based on their visual appearance.
When it comes to sex partners, well, to some extent I do care about their looks, but it’s not that important for me. A lot of other characteristics are much more important for me when deciding whom to date. For example, in my list of characteristics I look for in potential partners, things like “kind” or “well educated” are much higher than “has a sexy body.” Most of the people I have been with looked more or less average, I have never dated anybody who could get a job as a fashion model. And I’m perfectly fine with that.
sonofrojblake@#6:
I’m disappointed. Can you see yourself pointing this kind of sniggering ridicule at the treatments post-menopausal women use to continue to comfortably have sex? I can’t.
I’m probably not going to be able to respond at length for a couple days, sorry.
It seems you misunderstand me. I said that I’m in favor of cheaper/better access to ED drugs; the whole posting was about how Pfizer is trying to avoid exactly that, by coming up with a re-patentable variation that will allow them to grow and control the market. If I were against people having access to ED drugs I’d be complaining about the whole scenario, which I am not.
The word “entitlement” is the problem, it seems, and I probably should have searched harder for a better word. The process of growing the market has entailed marketing’s usual tricks, most notably making people unhappy or insecure with what they already have. I consider that different from trying to serve those who were already unsatisfied, for some reason beyond just whether their life is matching what is portrayed in their favorite pornos or by some marketing messaging. In other words, I consider the case of my friend who had chemotherapy wipe out his ability to have erections as profoundly different from someone who wants to be able to perform like a porn star. I used the word “entitled” because it made me think of incels, who are angry and unhappy because their lives don’t match up with the perception of the lives they ought to be able to lead, based on the marketing messages that are being pushed at them. They are suckers for marketing and if they want medicines so that they can perform like they imagine they want to, I’d personally rather see medicines being developed for people who can’t perform at all, for reasons other than marketing. That said, the guys who want to be able to perform like porn stars: that’s what Viagra’s for and I fully support making it cheaper, easier, and generic so those guys can grind it up and snort it with amyl nitrate if that makes them harder faster.
My feelings on this topic nudge into other areas such as cosmetic surgery. Again, the word “entitled” comes to mind. Does everyone have a right to be beautiful, or to fuck like a porn star? Does everyone have a right to a supermodel-looking partner? I fully support everyone’s desire to live the life that they wish to lead, but I think that often they are allowing marketing people to make them miserable, and that their “desires” are not real – they’re having their strings pulled. Does that make them desire it any less? No. But, again, I’d prefer to see cosmetic surgery innovation being spent toward reconstructing burn injuries rather than boob jobs or whatever. I’m fully aware that my view there is only my opinion and that people are welcome to prioritize where they will, but I’m just not able to respect someone’s wishes to fuck like a porn star. I won’t try to stop them, of course. But I think they’re being silly and allowing themselves to be manipulated.
Can you see yourself pointing this kind of sniggering ridicule at the treatments post-menopausal women use to continue to comfortably have sex? I can’t.
Well, they have an actual problem. Of course I won’t ridicule them. I don’t ridicule people with actual erectile dysfunction; I’ve seen the kind of anguish that can cause.
I’m willing to ridicule people who fall for marketing, but that’s based on my aesthetics not a moral argument.
@Andreas Avester, 12: “You proposed a hypothesis that the wide availability of online porn might be resulting in people becoming unable to get an erection with a partner and thus buying Viagra… I disagree with this claim and I find it unlikely.”
This baffles me a little. For centuries, in the absence of an actual other human, humans have had to use their imaginations and perhaps whatever saucy pictures they could manage to scrawl to get themselves excited. Access to those pictures was pretty tightly controlled. Then for a century or so, we’ve had pictures that move… but for the vast majority of that time, those pictures were pretty tightly controlled too. The variation available was limited. And then, in just the last decade or so, anyone, of any age, has literally instant access to ALL OF THE PORN, all of the time, for free, in private, with no need to go to a seedy cinema or shop or whatever. It’s as though we’ve lived on a balanced diet for thousands of years and suddenly everyone has a tap that will dispense liquid chocolate directly into their mouth free and on demand. Is it really that surprising tastes change and some people get fat in that scenario?
I find your suggestion that this absolutely unprecedented change in the pattern of availability of exposure to sexual stimulus would have no effect to be fishy and unconvincing. Also, your particular personal use of porn is anecdote, not evidence.
@Marcus:
And men with erectile dysfunction don’t. Privilege, much? Or even, toxic masculinity, because “real men” don’t get that kind of problem? You may not mean it this way, but that’s how it’s coming across, to me at least.
Pfizer isn’t trying to avoid access to ED drugs. They’re somewhat reasonably trying to maintain a revenue stream and get some payback for the extremely long, complicated and expensive business of developing drugs, now that the golden goose of label Viagra is dead and buried. There’s plenty to have a go at them for (e.g. marketing drugs that treat, but do not cure, conditions, because they make more money that way), but this is just a really really bad example and the way you’ve phrased it comes off as ridiculing the patients who’ve benefited and continue to benefit from the drug.
sonofrojblake@#18:
And men with erectile dysfunction don’t. Privilege, much? Or even, toxic masculinity, because “real men” don’t get that kind of problem? You may not mean it this way, but that’s how it’s coming across, to me at least.
I reject your accusation of privilege and toxic masculinity.
For one thing, I keep repeating that Viagra is available and I think it’s great that it becomes cheaper and more accessible to those that want it. You insist on ignoring that statement and pursuing some opinion that I am saying that there are men who don’t get that kind of problem – no, I am saying that Viagra is a pretty darned good solution right now for people who get that kind of problem So what’s the problem?
There are people like my friend Dan U. (who died of his mesothelioma in 2009) who were utterly unable to have erections because of a medical condition. Viagra would do nothing for him because the nerves were gone. So I would support developing solutions for people like Dan, preferentially to people who already have access to Viagra and for whom Viagra is becoming cheaper and more available. I’m not saying that people who want Viagra shouldn’t have it. Nor am I laughing at them or anything remotely like it. I’ve taken Viagra, myself. Now how to I untangle your accusation of “Privilege” in all that?
As I said earlier, there is another question, which is what about Viagra users who are using it because they’re not getting the kind and frequency of erections that they want? Well, let them do that, too. That’s also fine. Or not. It ought to be their choice. All of this ought to be the user’s choice.
Is something better than Viagra necessary? Well, with 300 million people taking Viagra, it’s obviously working pretty well, and with expanding use of Viagra, it looks like it’s working well for a whole lot of people. Maybe research for people with nerve damage, like Dan, would have been nice because the 300 million+ happy Viagra users are … happy?
this is just a really really bad example and the way you’ve phrased it comes off as ridiculing the patients who’ve benefited and continue to benefit from the drug.
I think you’re being over-sensitive, I really do. I keep saying that they should continue to use it if it makes them happy. If that comes off as “ridiculing” someone, you’ve got a very low bar for ridicule. Suggestion that when a problem appears to be fairly successfully solved maybe means that we don’t need a newer more patentable solution does not seem to be ridiculing the 300 million+ happy Viagra users, to me. (Including me, as I mentioned earlier)
There is a question that I am interested in, which is what “need” means in the context of treatment. Personally, I favor that treatments of all sorts be voluntary. If a patient wants to have a nose job, let them. If a patient has their nose burned and damaged in an accident, then by all means try to repair it. If, in this example, rhinoplasty is a solution that works pretty darned well for everyone who wants to change the shape of their nose, then let them do that – and research reconstructive surgery for people who did not have a choice regarding what happened to their nose. I’m not saying there’s a moral value to rhinoplasty or reconstructive surgery – it’s that there’s a solution (rhinoplasty) that works well for most people who are unhappy with their noses. By the way, I am unhappy with my nose, so if you want to continue to accuse my of being fucking privileged, you can square that circle. In the context of my nose, I am unhappy with it but I don’t “need” it changed. “Need” is an aesthetic decision I made – it bothers me but not enough – it’s not a moral issue. Now are you going to accuse me of looking down my nose at people who got rhinoplasty because I am unwilling to do anything about it out of apathy and personal distaste for surgery? Am I entitled to a beautiful nose? The universe doesn’t seem to think so and I don’t think so either. That’s not privilege, it’s that I simply can’t be arsed to do anything about it. Am I ridiculing people who have had rhinoplasties? No! Fucking rhinoplasties for everyone for all I care! [Mostly I want the bones where my glasses sit, to have a better place for my glasses to sit, to they stay up! I don’t think “the bones on my nasal bridge are not optimal for glasses” is a fucking ‘actual problem’ See?]
Marcus @#17
I totally agree with you that it’s disgusting when marketing people make us insecure or unhappy with what we already have. A while ago I even wrote at length about how marketing people have taught us that our natural bodies are ugly and that we must change them in accordance with some artificial ideal just so that they could earn some cash — https://andreasavester.com/history-of-the-always-changing-female-beauty-standards/ After all, if, for example, women believed that their naturally hairy legs are beautiful enough, there would be no profit for the marketing people who advertise razors.
So far so god and I agree with you, but how the hell do we separate “people who were made unhappy by marketers” from “those who were already unsatisfied, for some reason beyond just whether their life is matching what is portrayed in their favorite pornos or by some marketing messaging”? Ok, you mentioned an extreme example, a guy who cannot get an erection at all, so in this case we might be able to neatly put this guy into one of the two boxes you just offered. But for the vast majority of people this is not the case. You cannot tell whether this person dislikes their own body for some intrinsic reason or whether they were just manipulated by the marketing people. Marketing messaging is pervasive, it’s all around us, we have been exposed to it since early childhood. And it’s not just marketing or porn that’s setting unrealistic standards, the entire society bombards us with messages about how our bodies should look like or how we should live. What about that school classmate who said that you are ugly back when you were 10 years old? What about that friend of yours who made a casual remark that he likes women with big boobs? This is why for most people who are dissatisfied with some aspect of their bodies you cannot easily pinpoint a single reason that caused them to feel this way.
No, because nobody gets to have a right to other people.
Yes, in a perfect world we would have a right to choose how we want our bodies to look like. Unfortunately, in the real world plastic surgery is nowhere near good enough to make it a reality. Thus a few people get lucky to be born with beautiful bodies while the rest of us are stuck with whatever crap we got in the genetic lottery. But you don’t get to say that we the unlucky ones should stop wishing for a fairer world and stop complaining about being born unlucky. My desire for a different-looking body isn’t entitlement; it’s just me being unhappy with the fact that the world isn’t fair. The very fact that some people get to have beautiful bodies and can fuck like porn stars while other people are denied the same perks is unfair.
OK, let’s talk about real versus not so real desires. I wish my body looked differently. Objectively, there’s nothing particularly wrong with my appearance. I know countless trans women who would love to trade bodies with me. I even know cis women who would love to have my body, because, according to conventional standards, I’m prettier than average. Unfortunately, such objective facts don’t stop me from wishing I didn’t have boobs and had more muscle mass instead.
Here’s the problem—the society is pulling my strings when it makes me unhappy with my body. If I had grown up on an uninhabited island, I wouldn’t even desire a differently looking body. If I lived in a society where people with vaginas were expected to live as stereotypically male, and people with penises were expected to wear dresses, use make-up, and take care of children, then I’d be happy to have a body with a vagina.
I call myself queer rather than a trans guy, because I don’t have any intrinsic reasons to want to have a male body. Unlike many other trans guys, I don’t hate the body I happened to be born with. My problem is that I don’t want to live as a woman, I don’t want to be treated as a woman. It isn’t my body that’s wrong; instead it’s the society that’s wrong. I live in a society that expects people with anatomically female bodies to live in a certain way; a society that treats me as a woman due to the visual appearance of my body. Thus the society pulls my strings and makes me consider having my body chopped up by surgeons just because the alternative means being treated as a woman. And I don’t like being treated as a woman.
Is my desire to get a top surgery real or is it artificially induced by the society I live in?
Now, you might make a claim that a queer person like me wanting a top surgery is different than a cis woman wanting a boob job. In some ways, it really is different. But I see plenty of similarities.
Not only does our society treat men and women differently, the society also treats “beautiful” women differently than “ugly” women. What’s so different between me not wanting to be treated as a woman and an “ugly” cis woman not wanting to be treated as an ugly woman? (By the way, here I use words “ugly” and “beautiful” to mean “whatever marketers and fashion magazines call ugly or beautiful,” personally I express no aesthetic opinion about whether some human body ought to be perceived as beautiful or not.)
Personally, I believe that I don’t have a right to judge other people’s decisions about what they want to do with their bodies.
Moreover, I believe that if plastic surgery ever advanced to the point where anybody could look anyway they wanted, that would be a good thing.
That’s victim blaming. In this scenario I would put all the blame on the marketing people. They are doing a disgusting thing, they are making humans unhappy just to get some cash from their victims. I would never blame or call as “entitled” some person who was simply an unlucky victim of the marketers.
Here’s the problem—we live in a society where conventionally beautiful people get massive perks, they are treated better than conventionally ugly people. For example, there’s statistics about how beautiful people earn more income than ugly ones. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Being an “ugly” woman is even worse than being an “ugly” guy. Women are literally told that their value as human beings depends on how pretty their bodies are. Back when I was a teen, my face was covered in pimples. You cannot even imagine how much shit people told me just because of this single fact. And bear in mind that there wasn’t anything else particularly wrong with my body. I don’t even want to imagine how much shit an overweight woman with pimples on her face would hear. So, on one hand the society puts immense pressure on people who aren’t beautiful enough according to some arbitrary and currently prevalent standards. On the other hand, you tell them that they shouldn’t be so shallow and obsessed with their looks or erections or whatever. They shouldn’t be narcissistic and they deserve ridicule for falling prey to the marketing people. That’s unfair.
I do wish for the marketing people and the society in general to stop pressuring people to be beautiful or have long erections or whatever.
I also think that often it’s better for one’s mental health to just accept the body you have and skip obsessing over changing it with things like plastic surgery or Viagra.
But I would never judge some person for wanting a different body.
So, is there a difference between taking Viagra recreationally, and taking Viagra because of a medical need? If there’s no difference, then there’s no need to accuse anyone of privilege because the reason why someone take a medication voluntarily is sufficient in itself. If there is a difference, then it must be whether the patient “needs” it and it’s different from voluntary use. The model where you have to get a doctor’s prescription is based around the idea that a patient “needs” a drug – otherwise it would be sold over the counter.
Personally I think everything should just be sold over the counter (and be much cheaper) but society doesn’t: medicine insists that certain medications be reserved for patients that “need” them.
I’m not being privileged when I observe that. When I say “let those who need Viagra have it” I’m saying it ought to be available over the counter, with a very low bar for establishing “need” – I’m not laughing at anybody.
I hope that makes my opinion more clear.
[PS – I think people should be able to get pretty much whatever they want, without having to manipulate the system’s notion of “need” I’m of the opinion that America’s left-over christianity has a lot to do with societal attitudes toward opiates and benzodiazapenes. Why do I have to “need” painkillers in order to get them? I’d love to be able to have some Roxicet with my red wine now and then. And I’m not making fun of people who are in pain because I am on of those, too. To me the whole discussion revolves around societal requirements for that we “need” a drug before we can have it. I don’t like that but that’s how it is – and I’m not making fun of people who “need” pain drugs, for fuck’s sake]
Andreas Avester@#20:
You cannot tell whether this person dislikes their own body for some intrinsic reason or whether they were just manipulated by the marketing people.
Right. That’s why I don’t think that any of this stuff should be gatewayed by “need.”
I think sonofrojblake mistook my hatred for marketing people for being aimed at their victims.
Andreas Avester@#23:
That’s victim blaming. In this scenario I would put all the blame on the marketing people. They are doing a disgusting thing, they are making humans unhappy just to get some cash from their victims.
I can just as easily reply (let’s try it, arguendo) that you are infantalizing people and denying them agency by placing the blame for their unhappiness entirely on the marketers. Don’t you think that a person has some agency in the views that they adopt?
Marketing is tricky. Yes, they lie and try to make people unhappy with themselves, but the people also consume and accept the marketing. Marketing people choose to be slimy marketers (which is why I hate them so much) but people choose to watch youtube or whatever and choose to not work to see behind the marketers’ lies. It’s not a 100%/0% blame situation. And I don’t think it’s inappropriate to apportion some blame to the ‘victim’ when the victim willingly invites their victimhood.
Marcus @#21
I don’t like doctors as gatekeepers (I have read too many stories by trans people who had to prove to some doctor that they really were trans enough, and those experiences tended to be miserable and humiliating). But doctors checking that the patient at least understands what they are about to do with their body seems reasonable.
Everything being sold over the counter would probably result in some people hurting or even accidentally killing themselves. There are some very poorly educated people out there, for example, there are people taking MMS or chlorine dioxide, which is just an industrial bleach. Letting such poorly educated people get their hands on anything would cause some problems.
Marcus @#23
To some extent, yes. People can choose to read a textbook on marketing and learn the most common tricks. They can try to analyze themselves and their desires, they can try doing some introspection more often. They can intentionally abstain from making impulse purchases/decisions, and instead always spend some time before making the final decision. They can choose not to watch TV.
The problem with all of those options is that they are limited. What if you have conventionally ugly body and your pears treat you worse because of it? What if you work in some industry where everybody who doesn’t wear expensive clothes gets looked down upon by their coworkers? There are jobs where you must wear ex$$$pensive suits or else you will lose your job. When going to a job interview a woman must wear high heels and make-up or else her chances of getting hired will plummet. A person has some control over their own mindset, opinions, and values, but they have little control over what the rest of the society believe. Marketers contributed to creating a society where an individual person in judged by their peers based upon what stuff they purchase.
Let’s consider marketers telling women to shave their legs. In 1908 began a heavy and effective advertising campaign, which instructed American people that female underarm hair was offensive. Later they continued to press forward the message also about leg and pubic hair. An individual woman familiar with this bit of history might believe that she shouldn’t have to buy hair removal products, but simply choosing not to shave her body hair isn’t that simple. Her peers will look down on her if she chooses not to remove her body hair. At school, I have heard some locker room talk among teen girls about body hair, and that was pretty nasty. I’m not even a woman, but it took me years before I was comfortable wearing shorts on sunny summer days (I don’t shave my legs, for years I always wore pants just so that nobody would find out).
Whenever some individual human being holds an opinion that is bad or wrong, it’s not always because they intentionally chose not to work and not to educate themselves. Often it’s simply because they haven’t stumbled upon some educational resource that might be helpful in correcting their false opinion. I am lucky to have highly educated friends who on numerous occasions have told me “you are factually wrong, go and read this book.” Without their advice, I wouldn’t have just randomly stumbled upon that book on my own. If instead I had been born in a Christian family and grew up surrounded by Trump fans who believe everything that’s said on TV advertisements, I probably wouldn’t have most of the knowledge I have right now.
I agree. People should try to educate themselves and think about what they are being told. But I don’t think we have that much free will, so I blame the society to a larger extent than the individual.
Marcus somewhere above said
That isn’t the shape of your nose, it’s the fit of your glasses, (and possibly the quality of your glasses), your optician ought to be able to fix the problem, and if they can’t find a new optician. I say this as someone who used to have the same problem so I know how bloody annoying it is.