Viagra Vulgarity

  If any of us had any lingering doubts about the coarsening of American culture, we had only to watch the news recently. Turn on the TV, and all you saw were stories about Viagra, the new anti-impotence drug. For example, viewers saw Elizabeth Dole—a woman I admire and respect very much and who is a plausible candidate for president in the year 2000—telling the world that her husband was in the protocol test for Viagra. And, she added with a grin, "I can tell you that the drug works." You could almost hear the tittering from the press corps. And Bob Dole himself appeared on the Larry King show to talk about taking the pill. Once upon a time, in the not-too-distant past, personal sexual relationships were considered sacred and private. Not any more. Ever since the Viagra story hit print, we’ve been subject to an endless brag-fest. For example, there was the story of the 73-year-old retired firefighter living in a nudist colony in Pennsylvania. According to Time magazine, the man has sex "three or four times a week with several girlfriends in their twenties." He says he’s planning a Viagra party. Well, the jokesters are having a field day, and I guess I can understand why. But whatever happened to our sense of shame and propriety? When in American life has it ever been a seemly thing for otherwise distinguished people like the Doles to crow about their sexual activity? The public discussion of Viagra reflects the ultimate vulgarization of American life—the loss of any sense of modesty and propriety. Think about the way the Bible talks about sex. In the Scriptures, the sexual relationship is portrayed as the symbol of the relationship between Christ and the Church. It’s something God intended to be the most intimate and private expression of the union between a husband and a wife. But when people go on national television and discuss their sex life with the whole world, they’re putting sexuality on the same level as baldness or acid indigestion. It’s reduced from the sacred to just one more bodily function to be fixed. What God intended to be private is turned into a nauseating public spectacle. The fact that our culture accepts this spectacle so casually suggests we have lost a sense of the sacred—that there is nothing left that cannot be made the object of a glib joke, or the subject of an Oprah segment. It’s one more example of the waning Christian influence in our society. You and I have to help our neighbors understand that Christians are not being prudes when we suggest that sexuality is more appropriate for the bedroom than for the boob tube. When we promote modesty, we are recognizing that there are some things that are too important to be shared with millions of strangers. We Christians have to lead the charge back to a sense of sexual modesty. If we don't gather up whatever vestiges of shame, decency, and modesty we have left as a nation, we will soon be known, not as the United States of America, but as the Republic of Vulgaria. We ought to turn off the TV when the next formerly impotent man—or his wife—starts discussing matters that ought to be kept private. If people need medical help, fine. But please—don’t go rushing in front of a television camera to tell me how wonderful your sex life is. I just don’t want to hear about it.

05/18/98