快猫短视频

IT鈥橲 hard to pass up the offer of a feast of 鈥渟cience and pleasure鈥� in the
world鈥檚 capital of romance and sensuality. Which is how I found myself at the
15th World Congress of Sexology in Paris earlier this summer.

It鈥檚 a fabulous subject, sexology, full of fascinating insights and
revelations. The discipline, however, has its problems. Lack of academic
recognition, respect and funding dog our daily lives as sex researchers. But the
recent intervention of the major drugs companies seems to have elevated us to
the realms of 鈥減roper science鈥�, and provided money for research. My Paris
congress was sponsored, for example, by four major pharmaceuticals companies:
Pfizer, Abbot, Takeda and Lily Icos.

Now, after 10 years in the business, I know there are very big problems to be
solved. Among the biggest worldwide are sexual ignorance and the spread of
sexually transmitted diseases. Yet these were not the issues dominating the
conference. Instead, the medical treatment of sexual dysfunction, specifically,
erectile dysfunction, took centre stage. ED can have long-term physical and
psychological effects, and with some 10 per cent of men having problems
achieving or maintaining erections, more research is clearly needed. But it鈥檚
not the only sexual problem needing attention. Nor will it claim the lives that
HIV and the lack of efficient contraception do routinely.

But the conference programme suggested that the pharmaceuticals companies
could make sex problem-free. One advert for Viagra showed a man鈥檚 back with
fingernail scratches in the shape of a V. Running below were the words 鈥渦ne
marque d鈥檃mour鈥�.

It made me furious. Giving people a pill will never make someone a great, or
even adequate, lover, if they lack basic sexual knowledge. And what can Viagra
do for a country struggling to finance essential drugs, condoms or sex
education?

Something strange was also happening to the research papers. Where was the
objectivity in titles like 鈥淥ne Less Thing to Worry About: The positive safety
profile of Viagra鈥�, or 鈥淎 Unique Experience with Viagra鈥�? Elsewhere it got
scarier. Penis not working? Take a pill. Penis too small? We can rebuild, make
you feel 鈥渕ore manly鈥�.

There were critics. But just a few. Leonore Tiefer bravely argued that the
presence of the drugs companies detracted from other issues鈥攎ainly
alternative ways to look at sexual functioning, and women鈥檚 sexual problems in
particular.

Across the road, in the sort of cafe that only exists in Paris, I wondered
about that lack of criticism. Then it hit me. The drugs companies were tapping
into all our idealised feelings about sex鈥攖he version where sex is about
perfection, or, at least, perfectibility. No one wanted to think about bad sex,
or those upsetting problems that no overworked GP can hope to address in a
10-minute consultation.

As I ordered a stiff brandy to go with my fourth coffee, I decided that sex
is frequently tricky and imperfect, and pills or surgery alone are unlikely to
make it better.

Try putting that across in an ad campaign!