Gerard Oosterman

It has got me beat, why, when getting older and the morning glory finally in retreat, allowing a bit of a sleep in, that men’s obsession with flagging tumescence is called a ‘dysfunction’. The scientists in cahoot with sexologists have pored for years over glass test tubes to come up with a solution that will make the ageing male re-born again and cure him from flaccid flesh, drooping donger and dismissive dirges from partners. The expert doctor will now prescribe a pill to try and crank up the tired and ageing engine of love and lust once again.

We all know why doctor’s waiting rooms are seeing more and more men, looking a bit shy and sly. The grey haired male heads are now buried in Women’s Weekly trying to fill in the remaining left out clues on the cross words or count the differences in the two pictures. Life hasn’t always been easy.

All those relationship and marital battles, the kids gone astray up North bumming around on Noosa’s beaches with strumming guitars and silly girls with oafish boys. What about the maintenance and restorations, additions, extensions on houses and costs of kids, all those years of mortgage payments and sometimes also on partners and wives long gone.

Oh, that fatal dipping back in once life, the reminiscing on things gone by, and was all this for the insane drive and biological need for the going up and down.  Is that what has driven us all along in life?  Is this why we are sitting here in a doctor’s waiting room, all lost and chewed up?  Is it to pursue us men forever on?

Better stick to this puzzle making words from rows of letters, see how many I’ll get in before seeing the quack and get script on Viagra again.  I wonder what the Doc does in his old age, no doubt very generous in his own prescriptions.

Would all this worrying about rigidity in pyjamas next to partners be some giant con to get the pharmaceutical companies out of trouble?  I believe there is now a Viagra for women as well; many scientist have worked feverishly on this for a long time.  They believe that this new kind of female Viagra makes the blood flow to the pelvic area and works wonders.  Tests, so far done on rats, have shown it to be safely tolerated and the Pharmaceutical Companies a doubling of profits is assured if we can make ‘normal’ women feeling they have a ‘normal dysfunction’ as well.  Just like us blokes.

There are vague references made to men, as they get older, having vascular problems, smoking or drinking etc, all very normal and lack of tumescence a result of those chosen life styles.  Never ever, do they say that getting older might mean that things slow down a bit and that the flaccidity problem is a result of healthy ageing and pretty normal.

Oh no, around the world, hundreds of millions of men are bombarded with advertisements on how normal it is to have ED, and this is the triumph of money over common sense, it is a DYSFUNCTION and therefore ‘not normal’.  Millions don’t want to be feeling they have a dysfunction and hence the queue to the doctors and the handing over of billions to the merchants of Viagra, Cialis, Ram Rods, Pole Vaulters and others.

It seems that the mature man perhaps ought to take matters in own hand, step back sceptically and re-consider the issues a bit more thoroughly.

Could it be that advancing age is blessed with well hidden benefits of not having to be driven by those ridiculous up and downs, up and downs again?  It is not as if, afterwards, one ends up in Kalgoorlie or Vienna.  No we are still in the same spot and our partner will soon be snoring, a bit tired and the Viagra now is calling for revenge but will settle for a solid bout of thirty six hours of indigestion.

Gee, what rotten luck.  The Sudoku has been done in the May 2002 New Idea.  Don’t doctors ever think that patients might like something a bit more recent?

Just a good cuddle is what we are all really wanting more than this struggle with rigid or sloppy bits and being dependants on a pill.  It’s our entire fault, the stupid chasing of something that has gone, changed for something else, youth that is gone, thankfully gone!

Who would want to go through all that again?  Surely by now we could be looking forward in at least not having to worry about erections at bedtime and forgetting the Viagra.  We finally have the house paid, plenty of knives and forks, all the things at last in the right place, made a few friends and got it made, with pictures of smiling grandkids as proof.  The ride-on mower and two door fridge.

And afterwards, that glass of red, post dinner and on the comfy settee with partner in opposite armchair, nothing doing, not TV or Vid, nor noisy kids or tumbling dryer and dishwasher.  Just be sitting there.  How glorious.

That’s it, we are fed up with being taken as a sucker, enough is enough.  We have done our heaving and hoisting for pleasure, procreation and progeny, more than enough for the time being.  Put it all to pasture for a year or so, go for hugs and kisses, smell the roses and enjoy  time left.  No worries, yippee!

Doctor will see you now.

Yes, doc, I have got such a persistent cough………..