AND ANOTHER THING
Whatever the Nanny State says, Viagra has biblical authority
PAUL JOHNSON
Aa time when burglary in London is so common and so rarely punished that few violated householders bother to report intrusions unless their insurance company insists, large forces of Metropolitan Police have been raiding Soho establishments which sell Viagra illegally. Here is the Nanny State at work. Genuine crime baffles the limited capacities of Sir Paul Condom — Congdom? Condong? Condon? — so a phoney crime which is easy to investigate is invented. Besides, stopping men buying Viagra has the additional relish that it pre- vents innocent pleasure.
Of course Viagra is available in London and will continue to be so whatever Con- dom and his Keystone Cops do. Vast quan- tities are being brought back by visitors to the United States, where anyone can get it at a modest price. A reader in San Francis- co sends me a large photo-advert from the local paper. It shows a picture of Churchill giving the V-sign and reads: 'Victory at last! Viagra is here! Call Medical Associates for an appointment.' It is true that to get Via- gra you have to go through the mediatory process of consulting a sawbones. But that is a formality. I hear that, in the Hollywood set, a favourite douceur for a lady is to send her a huge tin of beluga (a traditional rem- edy for flagging powers) with a bottle of Viagra tablets concealed in the middle, for distribution among her boyfriends. Deca- dent? You bet it is! That's what Tinseltown is all about.
It is true that the nannies, who are even more numerous in the USA than over here, insist that misuse of Viagra by oldies is knocking them over like ninepins. The week after Viagra went on prescription, reports said that 30 men had already died from heart attacks after taking it. I have not found any authentication for the figure. If that was the death-rate after only a week, the numbers would now be running into thousands. I suspect it was invented, proba- bly by one of those kill-joy organisations which abound in America, such as the Daughters of the Revolution, whose best- known activity is their annual inspection of Fort Knox, to make sure the gold is still there. And even if it were true, who cares? It is well known that even without Viagra, elderly men suffer fatal heart attacks while copulating, sometimes with felicitous con- sequences. Thus, the death of President Felix Faure in the Elysee Palace in 1899 while entertaining a floozie — his dead hand was still inextricably clutched in the sumptuous tresses of the naked and hysteri- cal woman, so that his valets had to free her by cutting off her hair — led to the re- opening of the Dreyfus case, which Faure had insisted was a chose jugee. The same thing happened to a French cardinal not so long ago while he was engaged in reform work.
The truth is, Viagra is safe and non- addictive, which is why American medics prescribe it without fuss to those who pay its full market price. That would not do over here, where it would bankrupt the NHS. So why not make it freely available in chemists for cash? Far too many safe and useful medicaments, like Prozac, can be got only on prescription. It took quite a battle to get Zantac, a marvellous indigestion pill, off the dangerous drugs list, and even so you cannot buy it without receiving a little moral lecture from the teenage Sharon or Tracy who serves you, the last wag of the Nanny's finger.
To say over-indulgence in Viagra would endanger life is no argument. That is equal- ly true of aspirin. Alcohol probably kills more people, directly or indirectly, than all other drugs combined, but our safety-mad Labour government is now proposing to have it sold round the clock. And there is the little matter of butter — a real killer, that! — which is sold and consumed in unlimited quantities without any restric- tions whatever. I gave up butter entirely two years ago and the effect on my weight and well-being is palpable. But I would not dream of insisting that butter maniacs, of whom there are millions, be forced to get a bit of paper before being allowed to buy it.
The truth is, there is no logic or consis- tency in our regulation of the supply of non-addictive medication. It should be replaced by that wise old Latin tag, now It's a blow by blow account.' forgotten in our futile attempts to create a sanitised, risk-free society: caveat emptor.
I notice that while state-backed and financed organisations exist to cajole and, if necessary, force women into taking birth- control pills — positively cramming them into the stubborn mouths of philoprogeni- tive Asian and African girls — every effort, legal and exhortatory, is made to stop the circulation of Viagra. The reason is that the first is a feminist pill, associated with social progress, and the second is a patriarchal pill, associated with male self-indulgence. You think there's no such thing as left-wing and right-wing pills? Stop kidding yourself. As it happens, Pfizer, which created Viagra, is a sensible, conservative firm, which helps to finance worthy international conferences. I have profitably attended one or two. If ever there was a right-wing pill, it is Viagra.
The Pope has not yet pronounced on Viagra, so far as I know. But I doubt if he will condemn it, as he has left-wing contra- ceptive pills. Viagra does not interfere with the creative life processes — quite the con- trary. It may help to make some of the new and morally dubious dodges, such as in vitro fertilisation, less tempting. I expect the Pope to say that, like many other things, Viagra depends for its morality on the intention of the user. If the object is procre- ation and marital happiness, well and good; if it is simply self-indulgence, it is sinful.
Besides, there is a biblical authority. In Genesis xviii the Lord visits Abraham, then `old and well stricken with age', and, after first ensuring that his wife Sarah is not lis- tening, tells the old boy that she will give him a son. The words the Lord uses are: 'I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life.' This is, as I read it, a promise of potency. But Sarah, who was lis- tening 'at the tent door', heard what was promised and 'laughed within herself, say- ing, After I have waxed old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?' That is the first recorded joke in history, certainly the first Viagra joke. And like many Viagra jokes it provoked cross-gender misunder- standing. The Lord peevishly accused Sarah of laughing. 'Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay: but thou didst laugh.' Then the Lord went off to set in motion the catastro- phe which destroyed the Sodomites — a fit- ting end, you might think, to this instructive little tale.
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