Early last week the Room for Debate blog at the Times began a discussion about direct to consumer pharmaceutical advertising inspired in part by several politicians making moves to try and restrict such advertising. According to the Times one Democrat is sponsoring a bill “that would ban ads for prescription sexual aids like Viagra and Levitra from prime-time television, on decency grounds.”
I can’t quite believe that this member of Congress thinks raising the subject of sex is more indecent than the wholesale manipulation of people’s insecurities and fears about sex to get them to buy drugs that in most cases don’t address the problem. In fact I’d say that just about the only thing those ads are good for is the role they have in making the topic of sex something that’s okay to talk about in the light of day (if only they didn’t encourage us to talk about it in the most simplistic of ways).
If you don’t know what’s really wrong with the ads, the thing that Congress should be worried about, check out this wonderful take down of Levitra ads by Consumer Reports.
I often wonder who these people are and what world they are living in that they believe the majority of Americans find discussion of sexual pleasure to be indecent. Sure, maybe there are a lot of people who don’t want to have to explain to their kids why those people are smiling so much, or why it’s actually not cool to leave a pot of boiling water on the stove or the lawn only half mowed, but I bet few of them consider the ads indecent.
Read more – Room for Debate: Should Prescription Drug Ads Be Reined In?
|
| Twitter | Newsletter Signup | Sexuality Forum | |