ERECT

We are the nation of forward lookers. Often we wish things happen before their time. We sell Sunday news paper on Saturday. We wish our colleagues and coworkers a nice weekend at the middle of the week. We sell next year’s models of automobiles few months before the end of this year and books that are released this year are copyrighted for next year. What if we sell wine before its time? Wouldn’t that be something else with poor quality and bitter taste? What if a child is born today and his birth date is moved a few months ahead. Does that make him younger or that is plainly weird?

We may even invent a solution for imaginary problems that have not materialized yet. No no I am not talking about war with Iraq and preemptive strike and WMD tale, I am talking about erectile dysfunction, ED. Normally we seek solution to a problem if we encounter one. Looking forward to creating a problem simply because we already have a solution on hand is indeed out of the ordinary. I believe the pharmaceutical companies have invented ED for the sake of the cure. In other words, they have successfully created a disease to create a market for Viagra. To me there is no such thing as ED. Male sex organ is remarkably a self perpetuating apparatus that works perfectly. As a matter of fact it is the only part of your body that has the mind of its own. Its self-regulating, self-propelling mechanism kicks in and drives it to function even without your permission even while you are asleep. How many times you woke up early in the morning and had to rush to public bath house before sunrise to perform the mandatory religious duty of Ghosle Jenabat? Do you think that public bathhouses, back home, would make so much profit without perfect functioning male organs?

There is no such thing as ED, if there is an erection, it means it functions. The only time there is a dysfunction is when there is no erection. Even if there is a dysfunction, we don’t need laboratory-made chemical compounds to treat it. Unwind, don’t worry if you are unable to find or cannot afford lab-made solutions, you can always find cheaper substitutes. Who said the remedy for ED should come expensively in a bottle? How about a new edition of Sport Illustrated magazine swim suit edition, or in my case a free copy of Victoria Secret catalogue? What about leisurely things such stress-reliving activities?

As a matter of fact, we, the Iranians, have already invented a high potency workable solution for ED, even long before the discovery of Viagra, using high calorie natural ingredients. A blend of sesame seeds oil and date’s syrup called Ardeh Shireh. It has helped millions of men to insert the lost intimacy back into their life. It is not only stimulating but also delicious and much cheaper than Viagra. You don’t need any prescription to buy it either.

Even if there is no erection why it should be considered a problem? It is a blessing if you consider the enormous amount of money and aggravation we would save as a result of it. Romance is expensive both for individuals and for the society. Do you know how much money we squander because of erection? Although there is no reliable statistics, a whopping $138 per every man on valentine day alone according to CNN. You see, you romance, you fall in love, you have kids, you buy a house, and then you have to go to Home Depot everyday! As that famous Persian song would say, romance is not cheap, Atr khahad, chatr khahad, poodr khahad, keef khahad, kafsh khahad yare khoshgel. How much money we spend prosecuting sexual offenders and keeping them behind bar or under surveillance? How much we save as tax payers if our politicians do not send us the bills for their promiscuity and sexual indiscretion. Remember Eliot Spitzer and HIS $1000 an hour call girls. And not to mention, billions of dollars wasted on advertising male potency drugs, despite the fact that we cannot buy them directly. Have you seen some of their TV commercials lately? My favorite is the one that shows a young couple engaging in what looks like sexual stimulation and eventually they start to unbutton each others shirts and suddenly there is a voice saying “when the moment is right, will you be ready”. After a few seconds, they show the same couple at the middle of a huge corn field. Why you should go to the middle of a corn field when the moment is right? We have heard stories of people doing it at the backseat of their car, on first-class seat of an airplane, in parents’ bed room, public bath room especially in Minneapolis Airport, even in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, but in the middle of corn field under the watchful eyes of scores of scarecrows? And what would you do if the moment is right and she is not ready? Isn’t that like spending a sum of money and time preparing a delicious food and then when it comes to the eating there is no apatite.

When Viagra came along they had difficulty finding people who were willing to appear in its promotional TV commercials. There was a stigma attached to being labeled as impotent and worse to be seen by millions of viewers in a male potency commercial. Not any more, they show even young couples acknowledging their sexual impotency so happily. I haven’t seen so many happy seek couples in my life. If ED is a disease why people who suffer from it should be so happy and even brag about it? Should they be embarrassed by it? The fact is that those who appear in such testimonial ads are not ordinary people with ED. They are just pretenders. They are perfect-functioning actors and actresses.

Once I was called by one of this so called marketing research companies, they told me that they were conducting a survey in our area and were soliciting the consumers’ opinion about the effectiveness of advertising for Viagra. Likely, I was one of those chosen at random to take the survey. Do you have any idea on that subject, she asked me? I said yes, I think to increase the efficacy, the advertisers must use the format of before and after by showing the viewers what happen after they use Viagra. She told me that was an interesting idea but how can it be implemented? Do you have any suggestion? I said yes, I am an economist. I think of every thing in the context of demand and supply. You can use demand curve, a down-sloping line, for before and supply curve, an up sloping line, for after.

Some greedy entrepreneurs have gone even further. They try cynically to sell unsuspecting consumers the products that can help them enlarge certain part of their body. Come on, you must think that we are utterly stupid to believe that. If we can buy such an elixir, no one had to brag any more about their sport teams or how much of good deals they can negotiate everyday if they can brag about their body parts! This reminds me of a news story about an incident once happened at a busy airport. A man was arrested by the customs agents accused of smuggling three exotic snakes into the U. S. in his pants. However, after a close bodily examination, they found out that there were only two snakes! Do you think that man overdosed the male enhancement drugs or used them after their expiration date was over?

And please if you can make such miraculous drugs, make them available to us without prescription, cut the middlemen. Why do I have to go to my doctor and beg him at the front of his nurse and possibly his office personnel to prescribe Viagra or male enhancement drugs for me? I am already embraced enough especially when I responded to an invitation promising me free dinner just for attending a free workshop on ED. What do you think ED means to an economist like me? Elasticity of Demand obviously. Can you figure out how embarrassed I was after I found out that the workshop wasn’t about elasticity of demand, it was about, Erectile Dysfunction. And, one more thing, please make the male enhancement drugs general not specific I don’t need to enlarge certain components of my body, I need to enlarge the whole me so that the next time I need to buy cloths for myself, I don’t have to wait for Mr. Danny DeVito to have a garage sale. Even if you do want to make them specific, make something that enlarges people’s brain. That is what we need to have more of in this country.