Erectile dysfunction and the Alpha Male by Cameron Gaut

What is a stereotype? It is an over-simplified image or symbol, ready for visual consumption. Advertisements have always relied on stereotypes to sell products. Since most TV ads are only thirty seconds long, and most magazine advertisements only fill up one page, advertisers rely on quick visual identification to sell their products. Advertising works because consumers associate an image with a product, and after repeated stimulation, the message or image is subconsciously ingrained. In the last few years, advertisements for drugs that treat erectile dysfunction, or ED, have come further and further into the public spotlight. These ads don’t offer us any relief from the barrage of stereotypes in the media. In fact, ED drug advertisements reinforce the masculine stereotype because they portray the stereotype as desirable, as well as achievable through the use of the advertised drug.

Both humans and animals originated from nature, so it makes sense to analyze animal behavior to give us a firm platform to begin with. So, in nature, how do male animals act? A plethora of books have been written on the subject, but let’s abbreviate it for our purposes. Lions fight to the death for mating rights with lionesses, male jumping spiders perform elaborate mating dances to attract female attention, and male peacocks have brightly colored feathers that are meant to impress the female peacocks. It’s a fact of nature. Males compete for females, allowing the most adapted and strongest males to mate. Naturally, this makes sense. In order for the members of a species to thrive, they must reproduce as many of themselves as possible, and make their offspring as strong as possible. The male that leads the pack, the one that has sex with the most females is the Alpha Male, the one that all the other males wished they could be. At our most animalistic level, copulation is competition. However, animals obviously do not construct societies, and they clearly have no definitions of what it means to be a member of the male gender.

As we humans evolved from our primitive origins to the complicated beings that we are today, we assembled civilizations in which to function. The development of language allowed us to do this. We were civil beings, largely disconnected from our seemingly uncultured animal counterparts. Because of our logical, objectifying nature, humans began to classify objects in order to communicate abstract ideas to other humans. Just as we have classified millions of types of plants and animals, we have also classified types of humans. Classification became a way to take the infinite and condense it into the finite. The need to categorize large groups of people with certain traits seems to be the origin of the stereotype. Obviously, males share a plethora of common traits, most of them physiological in nature. However, at one point in history, certain groups of people began to classify behavioral traits in men, which eventually led to the enduring masculine stereotype. According to the historian George Mosse, it wasn’t until somewhere in between the second half of the eighteenth century and the nineteenth century that the stereotype of masculinity seemed to arise.

Lasting well into the eighteenth century, ideals such as medieval chivalry and rituals such as the duel facilitated the formation of early concepts of masculinity. The duel, a form of combat between men in front of witnesses, required physical skill and dexterity, which had always been prized as “necessary to defend one’s honor” (Mosse 23). The act of dueling embedded the traits of respect, pride, justice, and physical strength into the original notions of manhood. With the beginning of the modern age, Europe entered a more visually oriented era, one that emphasized the importance of the formation of the male body. Europeans began to homogenize, or look at man as a type, rather than an individual. By the end of the eighteenth century, the standard of masculinity was measured by appearance and behavior.

As the male physique became increasingly important as a potent symbol of true manhood, greater attention had to be paid to its development. For as long as there has been a standard of masculine appearance, males have molded their bodies to fit a manly image. This image that men have always strived to emulate originated from ancient Greece, where gymnastics was a widely used method to achieve the ideal male form. This is may be why sports have played such an important role in the masculine stereotype. To quote from Scouting for Boys (1908): “A strong and healthy boy has a [foot]ball at his feet” (Mosse 135). It wouldn’t be until the beginning of the 21st century that drug advertisers would capitalize on the association of masculinity and sports, which brings us to the birth of erectile dysfunction drugs.

In 1991, inventors and Pfizer employees Andrew Bell, Dr. David Brown, and Dr. Nicholas Terrett made a discovery. They found that certain chemical compounds belonging to the pyrazolopyrimidinone class aided in the treatment of heart conditions such as angina. The result was a drug called Sildenafil. In 1994, the endowing effects of Sildenafil were discovered during trial studies of the compound for treating heart problems. Terret and his colleague, Peter Ellis, discovered that the use of Sildenafil increased blood flow to the penis, and could be used to reverse the symptoms of erectile dysfunction (Bellis Online). Finally, in 1998, after extensive drug research, the FDA approved Sildenafil, more commonly known as Viagra, as a drug on the consumer market. In 1997, the FDA relaxed a prohibition on direct-to-consumer drug advertising, allowing pharmaceutical companies to market their drugs to consumers through radio, print, TV, and internet advertising (FDA Online). Televised ads are the most misleading of all; the function of the drug is never explicitly revealed. In this way, advertisers can avoid listing the side effects, which would otherwise be required by the FDA. Since the explosion of Viagra in 1998, variations of the drug inevitably followed. Currently, there are four different treatments for erectile dysfunction: Cialis, Levitra, Uprima, and Viagra.

The names of these ED drugs aren’t arbitrary; they’re carefully crafted and market-tested by drug companies, which can cost up to $2.25 million (DeNoon Online). What words are associated with “Levitra?” Lever… Lift… Levitate.... Levitate is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary to “rise or cause to rise into the air and float in apparent defiance of gravity.” The name itself humorously implies the drug’s function. How about Viagra? Viagra sounds big. Like Niagara Falls, it connotes power. “Vie” means to strive for victory or superiority. The brand name Uprima can be interpreted in a few different ways. The key word in this name is “up,” which is closely related to “upright.” It doesn’t require much speculation to see the connection between the function of the drug and these words. Another interpretation would involve the deconstruction of a few words that begin with “prim”: primary, primal, primitive, and primacy. What do they all have in common? They all describe something that comes first. Alpha Males always come first. In fact, the word Alpha is Greek for the letter a, which is the first letter in the alphabet. Whether these concealed meanings were intentional or not is irrelevant. The point is, these brand names affiliate themselves with traits desirable to males and capitalize on men’s desires to feel important, successful, potent, and to be the best. The brand names imply that men will be the best and most victorious if they use these drugs.

Victory is a recurring theme in the advertisements of ED drugs. In fact, sport is the vehicle of most ED ad promos. Viagra is endorsed on the panels of NASCAR race cars, as well as through Rafael Palmeiro, a player for Major League Baseball. To advertisers, the best way to reach a large audience of men is through sports. It’s also a convenient way to make men comfortable with their own sexual problems. ED ads portray sports figures that many men respect that have the same problems as their viewers. This is the main reason why pharmaceutical companies and commercial sports have teamed up to reach the largest potential customer base imaginable.

In a recently published magazine advertisement for Levitra, Mike Ditka, an NFL Hall of Fame player and coach, is imposingly crossing his arms. The entire advertisement is geared towards football and masculinity, which draws on the origin of sport as a manly endeavor in ancient Greece. A bold headline reads “strive to be your best.” From the lower corner, we see the phrase “proud sponsor of the NFL,” accompanied by the familiar NFL logo. Placed besides Mike Ditka’s face is a personal quotation. “It doesn’t matter if the challenge is on the field or off – I always strive to be the best.”

Males have always felt a tremendous societal pressure to be the best, to prevail and to dominate. From a young age, boys learn not to cry because it shows weakness. They are taught to look up to “Real Men.” Real men don’t cry. Who are these Real Men? There was a TV show that I used to watch called “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.” He-Man was the embodiment of masculinity. He was literally the most powerful, muscular man in the universe. I used to want to be He-Man; in fact, I wished to be the strongest man in the world after blowing out the candles on my 8th birthday. I thought that if I was strong like He-Man, everyone would like me. I thought this way because that’s what I learned from stories, movies, and TV. Everyone has read or heard some form of the tale of the “knight in shining armor” that comes to rescue the “damsel in distress.” That knight is a Real Man. Boys are ingrained with the concept that girls and women are helpless, and they are to be subordinate to powerful men. Girls are trophies to be won by the strongest and best man. There’s a perfect example of this in “Back to the Future,” when a teenaged George McFly punches Biff, the bully who almost wins over Lorraine, George’s future wife. After Biff falls to the ground, Lorraine suddenly falls in love with George, and they eventually get married. A young boy’s first movies, stories, and video games are almost always based on a plot that revolves around the “good guys versus bad guys” theme. To be the best, the men in these stories defeated their opponents. Boys are taught that men must be powerful, successful, virile, muscular, confident, and dominating.

In the aforementioned ad for Levitra, the drug’s slogan tells men to “stay in the game.” Here, “the game” is a metaphor for the copulation competition. In my high school, the most popular boys were football players. It seemed to me that the star player, or the Alpha Male, always got the prettiest, most popular girls. Perhaps football is just a grandiose metaphor for the courting and mating processes themselves. One needn’t look further than popular slang to see how intertwined the concepts of sports and sexuality are. In this case, to “score” with a woman means to have sex with her. In football, one must score as much as possible to win. The Alpha Male similarly “scores” with as many women as he can, especially if he’s taking Viagra.

A recent commercial for Viagra shows a man walking into the office, his co-workers asking if he’d gotten a new suit, haircut, shaved his mustache, gone on a vacation, gotten new shoes, or received a promotion. The narrator says “no, he asked his doctor about Viagra.” Perhaps they noticed that something was different because the pill’s enlarging effects were kicking in. Although this idea is amusing, this most likely is not the case. Viagra’s advertisers are probably implying that he had great sex the previous night, giving him confidence the next day. All it took was one pill to make him the Alpha Male for a night.

During last year’s Super Bowl, ads for Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis were all aired. Averaging at the cost of $2.3 million for a 30 second timeslot, these ads cost pharmaceutical giants an incomprehensible amount of money. Drug corporations are obviously willing to bet that they’re going to make all of that money back, and then some. The commercial for Levitra shows a middle-aged guy who sees a football in his backyard shed. He tries to throw the football through a tire strung from a nearby tree. It bounces off repeatedly, try after try. The voice-over suggests you "ask your doctor about new Levitra." Levitra's logo pops up on screen, and the sound of a match being struck plays, suggesting that, unlike its competitors, Levitra is hot, while the others are cold and sterile. The suddenly revitalized man throws the ball straight through the tire, again and again. A smiling, much younger woman joins him in the yard, and they nuzzle. The ridiculous suggestions that this ad makes imply that, with Levitra, you too can “get it in the hole” every time.

Drug advertisements such as these are prolonging the antiquated classifications of human characteristics. Men and women today should not be pigeonholed as manly or womanly. We are ready to evolve beyond those stereotypes. Let us put an end to the ideals of the Alpha Male and the feeble female. We need to step outside of our black-and-white vision, to see that humans are not just either masculine or feminine, but a glorious equilibrium between the yin and the yang, between the push and the pull, between the sturdy and the supple. How much longer are we going to tolerate multi-billion dollar corporations capitalizing off of insecurities caused by an inability to meet the demands of gender stereotypes? How much longer are we going to perpetuate ideals of the past? These are the questions that will put an end to the repression of our true selves. These are the questions that will propel us to incite a gender revolution.

Sources Cited:

Bellis, Mary. “Viagra, the patenting of an aphrodisiac.”
<http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa013099.htm>

DeNoon, Daniel. “What’s in a drug name?”
< http://my.webmd.com/content/article/80/96414.htm?z=1728_00000_1000_nb_05>

Farnham, Alan. “Is sex necessary?”
<http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/Business/forbes_sexnecessary_031014.html>

FDA (Food and Drug Administration). “Direct to You: TV Drug Ads That Make Sense.”
<http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1998/198_ads.html>

Mosse, George L. The Image of Man. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
The American Heritage Dictionary. Third Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.