I was fascinated by the fact that The Sunday Times magazine recently devoted its front cover and six inside pages to what it called ‘Viagony and the ecstasy’, an evaluation of the social changes that Viagra has made since it first thrust itself to the forefront of our collective consciousness nine years ago. One of the main themes of the article was the suggestion that modern man’s ability to achieve chemically-induced erections at will is having an adverse effect on heterosexual relationships because of the emphasis on penetration, performance and prolonging the sexual act and the concomitant decrease in communication and the celebration of the human mind as the most erotic part of the body.
To me the debate should be seen in a far wider context which The Sunday Times chose to ignore, namely the medical profession’s drive to offer us a pill for every human ‘defect’, both physical and mental. If you believe what you read in the papers, you will soon be able to pop a pill to cure shyness, baldness, addictions, obsessions, negative thinking, many major illnesses and other faults and imperfections which the test tube brigade are no doubt working on at this very moment. There are those who react instinctively by bracketing such instant cure-alls with genetic engineering and body part replacement, dismissing any positive aspects by suggesting the whole pill therapy business smacks of Frankenstein syndrome.
There is certainly a danger that the quest for physical and mental perfection is making neurotics of us all, leading us to become compulsive seekers of an impossibly flawless self-image that can never be fulfilled. As against that, anything that can lessen misery and suffering, however trite the problem might seem, can surely not be a bad thing. In the end it is all a question of balance. Being human means living with something less than perfection but more than mediocre acceptance.
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