‘Ladies! Faking it? Feel it for real! Call one of the doctors at Advanced Medical Institute now,’ and there’s a picture of a gorgeous-looking scantily clad girl seducing an equally gorgeous-looking guy.
It’s a massive billboard over the road from Flinders Street Station with a roadworks sign beneathit that reads, ‘SEEK ALTERNATE ROUTE.’ Not sure if that was part of the official campaign, but if it was, whoever came up withthat little installation is a genius.
How many Regular Normal People (RNPs) feel quite happy about themselves and their sex lives or lack of until the dissatisfaction fairy in their guts gets abruptly woken by billboards screaming: ‘Do you want longer-lasting CENSORED?’, ‘Men, DO IT longer’ or ‘Faking it? Feel it for real!’
How many RNPs, withnothing wrong withthem, digest these billboards and suddenly start thinking, ‘Is everyone else having more sex than me? Is everybody else lasting longer? Doing it more times in a night? Am I missing out? Is there something wrong withme? Am I normal? How much is normal? How long is normal? How many times is normal? Is there something wrong withme? Do I need to be fixed? Am I broken?’ How many RNPs see these billboards, read magazine ads and hear radio commercials and are suddenly racked withinadequacies?
The answer appears to be ‘stacks.’ The sexual-dysfunction market is huge and growing. Last year Advanced Medical Institute posted a 50 per cent increase in gross profit, from $8 million to $12 million. There’s money in limp penises, dry vaginas and human beings’ innate competitive and insecure nature, which keeps us constantly trying to keep up withthe Joneses, even in the sack.
Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s not wrong. I’m not taking about censorship. Some people find sex confronting or offensive. I’m not one of them, because I’m an adult. My issue is that just because they’re ‘doctors’ from an ‘institute,’ ‘clinic’ or ‘foundation’ doesn’t mean some clever cookie isn’t exploiting human frailty – the fundamental tenet of capitalism being, ‘Create dissatisfaction and there’s your licence to print money.’ The words ‘dosage,’ ‘suffering,’ ‘healthissue,’ ‘treatment,’ ‘dysfunction,’ ‘gel’ and ‘nasal-delivery technology’ suck people into thinking they have something wrong that needs to be fixed. Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission have serious concerns and have received an alarming number of complaints about false and misleading advertising, lack of scientific backing and unsubstantiated claims in this area.
One website is quick to normalise: ‘You might take comfort in knowing that as many as four in ten women have the same problem at some point in their lives’ and reassures the blokes that ‘an estimated 30 per cent of men suffer from premature ejaculation.’ Reading the website gives you the feeling that even if you don’t think you’re sexually inadequate, you probably are. Or you will be. But relax. We know what to do, but you’ll have to sign up for twelve months and it’ll cost you $3000.
It’s called disease-mongering and it’s defined as ‘trying to convince essentially well people that they are sick.’
Lenore Tiefer, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York University, believes the creation and promotion of sexual dysfunction is a textbook case of disease-mongering.
‘Sexual life has become vulnerable to disease-mongering for two main reasons. First, a long history of social and political control of sexual expression created reservoirs of shame and ignorance that make it difficult for many people to understand sexual satisfaction or cope withsexual problems in rational ways. Second, popular culture has greatly inflated public expectations about sexual function and the importance of sex to personal and relationship satisfaction.’
Genuine cases of sexual dysfunction should be handled by GPs and specialists, not spruiked by billboards, magazine ads and radio commercials. Are vulnerable people being sucked in by some quick-fix solution when the problem is actually physical (obesity, substance abuse, unrelated but contributing healthproblems) or psychological (stress, emotional trauma, relationship disintegration)? Or worse still, are they paying to have something fixed that’s not broken?
The real problem is the unrealistic expectations of sex and relationships we have in this pop-a-pill, flick-a-switch, perfection-default-setting society we live in. Lack in the sack may be frustrating and disappointing, but sexual dysfunction is not a huge problem. Unrealistic expectations certainly are. We’re all convinced we’re missing out. But slipping mickeys into people’s drinks is still slipping mickeys into people’s drinks. Even if it’s by a bloke in a white coat from some so-called institute.