Joe Davis – Announcer [00:00:00]:

The following content is not suitable for children.

Laurie Watson [00:00:02]:

George do you really think Viagra is addictive?

George Faller [00:00:06]:

I yes, I do.

Laurie Watson [00:00:08]:

Laurie okay, let’s talk about if Viagra is once you use it, are you always stuck using it? And what does that all mean? Welcome to foreplay sex therapy. I’m Dr. Laurie Watson, your sex therapist.

George Faller [00:00:25]:

And I’m George Faller, your couples therapist.

Laurie Watson [00:00:27]:

We are here to talk about sex.

George Faller [00:00:29]:

Our mission is to help couples talk about sex in ways that incorporate their body, their mind, and their hearts.

Laurie Watson [00:00:37]:

And we have a little bit of fun doing it right?

George Faller [00:00:39]:

G listen and let’s change some relationships.

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Laurie Watson [00:01:12]:

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George Faller [00:02:14]:

Laurie I have to start off by admitting I really know nothing about Viagra.

Laurie Watson [00:02:20]:

Quit bragging.

George Faller [00:02:22]:

What I hear from friends and people I work with. This is why it’s so much fun for me to work with a sex therapist who has kind of information and research and science behind to educate me and kind of help us, our listeners, kind of dispel some of the misinformation that’s out there. Right. But what I hear is for men that are having problems with ed right. And they go to Viagra, the Viagra gives them a sure thing. It’s a confidence boost that says, I don’t have to worry about this. It’s nice to have sex when you don’t have to worry about it. And it’s nice to have sex when your penis is not, like, half hard, but it’s fully saluting you right. And that feels pretty good, everybody. So there’s a powerful pull to that Viagra that says, I know it’s going to be a sure thing. I know I’m going to be fully hard. I like the way that feels i, like, feeling confident. I like my partner responding. I need that viagra. And then what I’ve heard is, when you don’t have the Viagra, the shadow, the looming thread of is it going to work? Am I going to say hard? That starts to really start to kind of take over the sexual act. And then when they do lose their erection, it’s like, forget that I’m not having sex without Viagra. I don’t want to feel that feeling again of losing my erection and worry.

Laurie Watson [00:03:47]:

About your prescription, buddy.

George Faller [00:03:49]:

All right, so let’s straighten out my misconceptions here, my dear.

Laurie Watson [00:03:53]:

Okay, so first of all, we want to think about why did they get this prescription for Viagra in the first place? And Viagra, it’s really Sedenophil, which is the generic drug, but we all understand Viagra, it is a brand name, and we’re not getting paid for Viagra. So why did they have in the first place? And I think there’s two things I’d like to think about young men and older men. So why do men start to lose their erections or the quality of their erections as they age? So this happens about 40, 45 sometimes for men. And really, for most men, it’s the first signal about cardiovascular disease. So their erectile quality lessens, so they don’t get as hard as they did, or they’re starting to have a few problems because the capillaries in their penis are getting clogged with cholesterol. So if you have high cholesterol or you carry maybe even ten pounds on your belly as a man, you are risking Ed.

George Faller [00:05:03]:

Going on a diet, laurie five years.

Laurie Watson [00:05:06]:

Son of a gun.

George Faller [00:05:07]:

What is going on here?

Laurie Watson [00:05:08]:

No more pasta, George. No pizza is off the menu. You have a choice. Pizza sex.

George Faller [00:05:19]:

Oh, that is unfair. That is really the evil choice right there.

Laurie Watson [00:05:22]:

I know, it that’s one issue, and I don’t know why general physicians are not screaming that to men. Because they need to. Okay, so let’s say he’s 45, 50, and he’s starting to notice this difference, and he’s going to his doc. He’s like, I think the first time a man has Ed, and every man has Ed, it is so damn normal. That’s the other thing I want to say. It’s just normal sometimes to not be able to get aroused or to lose your erection or to have a stray thought that, boom, you just lose your erection. That’s no big deal. And most couples can manage that. Okay, you’re smiling. What are you thinking?

George Faller [00:06:04]:

It’s just such a pressure that men have not real men don’t lose it not this guy. It’s funny, the image out there. This shouldn’t happen to a real man. You should be 100% performing all the time. I know the research. 15% of sexual encounters are ending in some kind of problem. I mean, that’s just the math. That’s the science. You can’t argue with it, but it’s amazing the pressure that a lot of men feel that they should be the exception to that, that real men don’t have these issues.

Laurie Watson [00:06:35]:

And you have knocked it into my brain that this is such a worry and a concern for men. I have thought about Ed in a new way since working with you. What I used to think was more from a statistical perspective and also a female perspective. It’s like, I think as a woman, we know what it’s like to not get aroused easily sometimes, or lots of times. So if a man can’t get aroused or he loses it, it’s like, that feels kind of normal to me. But you just knocked it into my head that for a guy, this is a big, big problem. And I want to talk about the.

George Faller [00:07:12]:

Addictive issue, but I just highlight what you’re saying because, again, no, that’s the awareness, because women, that’s part of their cycle, right, is they’re going to lose it and gain it and lose it and gain it. They have much more empathy and understanding for being able to lose it. I don’t think most guys ever hear that or know that, because there’s so much pressure to like, you can’t lose it. A real man stays aroused the whole time. That’s what real men do. It’s hard to imagine that somebody would be okay with losing that. So, again, what you’re saying is so important. I want to highlight and circle and send it out to the world. Like, women are more okay with this than most men think. Why? Because their bodies do it all the time. That’s, I think, liberating for men to hear.

Laurie Watson [00:08:01]:

Yeah. So I don’t think a woman in her 50s is expecting a man in his fifty s to stay hard for the 40 minutes it takes her to get to orgasm. That would be crazy. I think that’s just too long. So there’s compromises and there’s ways, I think, to have sex so that both people get what they need. Yada. Yada. But let’s just say he’s using Viagra. And does he need it every single time? No. And you know what? Sometimes he plays with that. It’s like, I’m feeling a lot of arousal. I’m feeling desire. I’m not going to take my pill. Okay. And then he doesn’t tell her which time is which time, right? So maybe the time he doesn’t take his pill and he has a lot of confidence, but he really does lose his erection that time or the quality isn’t the same, and she has no idea what’s happening. And it’s like, first that lack of communication about when he’s taking the pill and when he’s not gets in their heads. It’s like sometimes he’s hard, sometimes he’s not. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to make him hard. I don’t know how to make him happy. It gets all mixed up between couples. And so then maybe he says, you know what? She gets mad at me if I lose my erection. Well, maybe she’s mad that you lose your erection. And sometimes yeah, a woman wants a man with a hard erection sometimes. Absolutely. But sometimes it might be this confusion between the two of them where she doesn’t know what he needs. He’s not asking for the stimulation that he needs. He’s seen his erection is waning, and he doesn’t say, hey, baby, could you go down on me? Or could you touch me in this way? Or could we fantasize like this or something? He doesn’t really ask for the erotic stimulation that he needs. And so then it’s starting to go sideways. He loses it. He tells himself, I’m not going to risk that. I’m going to take Viagra every time. And there’s frankly, George, there’s kind of very little downside to taking Viagra. Viagra is a huge experiment. Viagra was developed in my lifetime. So think about it. Men who got to be about 50, who lost their erections, they had desire, but they could not perform. So sex went offline for lots and lots and lots and lots of couples. Maybe she hit menopause, maybe she didn’t care as much. And he’s like, I can’t perform. Can you imagine the revolution that happened with this drug?

George Faller [00:10:38]:

No wonder why people started to die at, like, 50. This is raising our life expectancy. This is amazing. I’m going to buy some stock here. Let’s go.

Laurie Watson [00:10:49]:

Exactly.

George Faller [00:10:50]:

So, again, what I hear you saying, which is what men are telling me, which is, why not use Viagra all the time?

Laurie Watson [00:10:58]:

Yeah, I mean, why not?

George Faller [00:11:01]:

Wouldn’t it make sense then if you want to use it all the time? Because there are no really risks of doing it and you’re going to perform. Why? You can’t really think about having sex without it because there’s a risk in having sex without it.

Laurie Watson [00:11:16]:

And why do we worry about that?

George Faller [00:11:18]:

I don’t know.

Laurie Watson [00:11:20]:

It’s not addictive. There’s not like a physiological maybe it’s.

George Faller [00:11:24]:

A psychological sure that says, once I start taking this pill, I won’t stop taking this pill because I don’t want to fail, and this pill gives me success not to fail. Is that something men need to think about? If you start taking it, you’re always going to take it.

Laurie Watson [00:11:42]:

I think one of the things that I’m trying to highlight too, though, is sometimes Viagra getting an easy erection, maybe shortcuts the sexual conversation. That could make it more erotic for both of them and for him in particular. I think men have this expectation, I should be hard, I should not have to ask for what I need. I should just get it up. And they’re used to that when they were young. They just got it up and how amazing and how wonderful, and I’m happy for them. But as they age and they need this, they might need other things, too. And having that conversation and being vulnerable about that could open a pathway between the couple that is exciting. I mean, how wonderful to hear your partner talk about their sexual needs. And I know there’s lots of women out there in the whole pursue withdraw, but I’m rooting on the side of openness and how that creates deep, deep attachment and connection. And so hearing your partner talk about their fantasies or what they want to do in bed, it’s like that’s hot shit.

George Faller [00:12:59]:

Yeah. And you’re highlighting the opportunity. I want to come back from break and fire away questions at you from the uneducated that just have no idea, and they just know this thing that makes them hard, but besides that, really don’t know much about it. This is a chance for this expert to answer so many of our questions.

Laurie Watson [00:13:18]:

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George Faller [00:16:00]:

All right, Laurie, so I’m going to take Viagra for the first time. What do I need to know? How long before sex? How long is it going to last? Is it going to impact my orgasm? Does after my orgasm, what happens?

Laurie Watson [00:16:16]:

Okay, so good questions. So, first time users? Yeah, I would say give it a half an hour. And when we think about the woman’s cycle of arousal, how long it takes her to get aroused, isn’t that perfect timing? You just pop a pill, maybe even at dinner. And there’s different pills have different qualities to them. So there’s some that they call daily that you can take. Usually that’s Cialis, you can take essentially like a half dose that kind of keeps you ready. Like when you get out of the shower and you’re toweling off, you have more sensation in your penis. It may be stimulating more on a daily drug. I think that happens, but it also may not give you quite enough for an event. It just depends. I think all of the drugs, you have to play with them and figure out which one works the best for what you need and what you want.

George Faller [00:17:12]:

So I would take it at dinner. I’m hoping to have sex like an hour later.

Laurie Watson [00:17:17]:

Yeah.

George Faller [00:17:17]:

And so what starts happening? Like, when it kicks in, it’s like, boom, full salute, ready to go.

Laurie Watson [00:17:25]:

Oh, thank you. Gosh. I didn’t think that people didn’t know that or men didn’t know that. No. You still need stimulation, so it does not automatically give you an erection. So you need to be touched or you need something starting the sexual event, usually sexual stimulation to get aroused still.

George Faller [00:17:46]:

But once you get aroused and does it just stay aroused?

Laurie Watson [00:17:50]:

Depends.

George Faller [00:17:50]:

I hear all these stories of walking on with a hot on for like, 4 hours and it doesn’t go away. Is there a truth to that or is that another?

Laurie Watson [00:17:57]:

There is truth to that, and that’s a dysfunction. So if that happens and you don’t lose your erection quickly after an orgasm, that’s a medical emergency. So you really do need to go to the Er with that. You do not lose your erection relatively quickly after orgasm. When you’re on Viagra, either you overdosed on Viagra or something has gone wrong. The way your body has reacted to yeah, get to the Er, because what’s happening, right, is the blood is being caught in the penis, the valve is not opening. So if we have blood that’s caught in the penis I just noticed, I said we if we have blood caught in our penises, we’re going to lose the tissue, we’re going to lose the penis. So that’s why you got to get to the doctor so that we don’t.

George Faller [00:18:45]:

Want to lose the penis. Pay attention, everyone here.

Laurie Watson [00:18:49]:

This is the doctor. So that the tissue doesn’t die.

George Faller [00:18:52]:

All right? So again, my misconception very rare.

Laurie Watson [00:18:55]:

Very rare.

George Faller [00:18:56]:

My idea of Viagra is you take it, you get a rock hard on immediately that lasts for three or 4 hours no matter what you do. That’s not accurate. What I hear you say, correct me if I’m wrong, is that it kicks in when you get arousal like it normally does anyway. It just helps with that process. It helps you maintain your erection so you can have an orgasm. After you’re done with your orgasm, you should lose your erection if that’s what normally happens for you and you’re like not having sex anymore and maybe you’re an afterglow or something else. Viagra is not really changing the act so much as far as just helping the erection when you would normally have the erection anyway, right?

Laurie Watson [00:19:34]:

So it helps with vasodilation. So it helps your veins dilate a little bit better, smoother, so that the blood can come into the penis more rapidly. Stay there. It helps. And men have erectile problems not just for cardiovascular issues, but also for valve issues. That’s one thing that we can’t easily diagnose, why a man is having Ed when it’s physiological. But the beautiful thing is that Viagra helps with that, too. It helps the valve problems. I mean, it’s really a miracle drug for a man to use to get good erections when he’s having problems. And you’ve also said there are psychogenic reasons. Right? There’s reasons in their brain that are anxiety related. And this is why young men which.

George Faller [00:20:27]:

Is a big part of it. No, I mean a big part of it psychological.

Laurie Watson [00:20:30]:

Not always. No, George, I mean, there are really a lot of physiological issues that men face as they age that are not in their I don’t it is not just anxiety, it is in their well.

George Faller [00:20:43]:

We’Ve talked a lot in episodes, though, around what pressure does to perform. And if you needing to focus on the external pornography and you’re not present with your partner, you’re not in your body, I mean, all these things are going to kind of get in the way of the mechanics. But yes, as you get older, the mechanics are changing too. These valves are breaking down. Too much pizza, which, again, that’s not fair.

Laurie Watson [00:21:08]:

Yeah, exactly. So it’s not like being 20 again and you get a hard on just with a stiff breeze.

George Faller [00:21:19]:

So what’s going on with these 20 year olds? Mechanics are fine.

Laurie Watson [00:21:24]:

The mechanics are usually fine. And so it is in their heads, it is anxiety that causes them to lose their erections, not be able to climax. I mean, there’s all kinds of things that happen to young men, too, mostly what we call psychogenic, which is treated insects therapy. So for them, I have a lot more hope about helping them get through this in their brain. So maybe they don’t have to use Viagra. I mean, I think that the issue with Viagra sometimes is the spontaneity issue. Men say, oh, we can’t be as spontaneous. I think that’s a reach. Like, most of the time you’re having sex in your home, you have Viagra at the ready. I just don’t get it. Anyway, so young men, let me go back, let me go back. So, yeah, the cool thing about it is, for men that are young, it works. It reduces their anxiety. I had a guy who came to see me. He was back in the dating field. He had struggled with Ed, with his wife that he divorced. Like, later in the know, things went south, and she’d be angry at him, and just keeping an erection was hard. And so he’s like, I do not want to go out there, Lori, and face the dating world like this. It’s too scary. It’s like, what if I’m with a woman and I lose my erection? He’s like, I would be mortified. So now I don’t want to date. I don’t want to get reconnected. But there was a longing in him to find another partner to date again, at least. So Viagra was the perfect workaround. It’s like it gave him assurance that he could maintain his erection and have a good experience, and boom.

George Faller [00:23:07]:

So what are some of the side effects? What are some of the drawbacks of taking it?

Laurie Watson [00:23:11]:

It is a vasodilator, and interestingly enough, our noses have erectile tissue in them. So many men have stuffed up noses when they take Viagra, so they kind of get that bad.

George Faller [00:23:24]:

You can say your nose grows like pinocchio.

Laurie Watson [00:23:26]:

I say, oh, shit doesn’t grow, but it gets stuffed up and clogged up the vasodilation in their heads, right? So they might have a headache. Those are really common things. They can get low blood pressure. So there is some certain interaction with cardiovascular drugs. So you got to be careful that you are okay to take Viagra. But there can be other things, like an upset stomach. You can have vision changes. Most of the short term side effects. There’s a workaround, I would say maybe take ibuprofen an hour before you have sex and then take the Viagra or the sedanophil, especially if you have that headache problem, the cold. Sometimes you can take cold medication using a nasal steroid or something like that. That can change that. So, I mean, most of those things, when men complain about that, I think, well, the risks are first of all, you can also change drugs so maybe what you feel on one drug is not what the other drug, the symptoms that it gives you. So that would be good. I think obviously what we talked about, a prolonged erection would be really bad, and you need to do something about that immediately. But other than that, there are issues that happen, but nothing. I know doctors who prescribe Viagra, George, for very obese men that clearly have cardiovascular issues, and it’s like they get the drug too. I mean, there is rarer problems, but nothing that I think for most people is contraindicated and it doesn’t lead to technical addiction. So I take it, and then my body wants it. That doesn’t happen.

George Faller [00:25:17]:

Okay, well, it’s nice to have an expert who can answer our questions. We invite our this reach out to Lori here. She could kind of answer a lot of these questions. So if you wanted to, say, have an extended sexual encounter, maybe you wanted to have an orgasm twice as a guy. That never really happens. Would Viagra help you with that?

Laurie Watson [00:25:39]:

Probably. And it would depend on which drug. CLS probably gives you more of that flexibility when you have it in your system on a daily basis to do that. But men in their 50s, oftentimes they have a refractory period, right? Which is they have a rest period after having an orgasm, that they can’t have an erection quickly afterwards. This is the blessing of being a woman, is we have a very short, if nonexistent, refractory period. That’s why women can have multiple orgasms one after another, because their body doesn’t need that rest. It stays high with arousal, so they can climax again and again if they want. It’s not a thing you have to do. All right, so, yes, maybe it helps them have another erection, but if they’re using it for physiological reasons, maybe combined with anxiety reasons, and they’re in their 50s or late forty s, the odds that they’re going to have two erections in one night probably low, doesn’t mean that she can’t have two maxes in that night. I would just want to say, why.

George Faller [00:26:51]:

Do some men stick needles in themselves to kind of get erect? Like, if taking a pill is going to kind of do the job here, why are there all these other types of treatments?

Laurie Watson [00:27:03]:

Okay, so sometimes it doesn’t work. There are more pronounced problems, like prostate cancer, for instance. This can damage the nerves. Even if the nerves are not cut, they can be stretched. It can damage the surrounding tissue when they go and take the prostate. And so Viagra is just not enough. So they need other stronger drugs to give them an erection. So they might use a shot in the penis, which sounds terrible, but a lot of men I mean, a shot is a shot once they get over the psychological idea of putting a needle in their penis. A lot of men tell me it’s like, hey, I would do anything to have an erection. This is okay, right? It’s fine. Not fine. And I don’t mean to minimize that idea, but yes. So there are other drugs that can be used. There’s a drug that you can actually stick into the urethra that kind of melts. That doesn’t sound all that sexy to me for a guy. But look it, if you’re having a lot of problems, the good news is we can help men have erections ongoing so that they can enjoy sex and intercourse if they want.

George Faller [00:28:15]:

Well, you opened up a whole area of discussion, and hopefully some of our listeners could have a conversation about Viagra. Maybe it’s helpful, maybe it’s not. Who knows? But to have again, it’s another doorway into your relationship and higher levels of engagement. So, Doc, thank you, sex expert Dr. Lori Watson, on this educational breakdown of purple pill.

Laurie Watson [00:28:40]:

Thank you, G, and thanks for listening.

George Faller [00:28:43]:

Keep it hot, y’all.

Joe Davis – Announcer [00:28:45]:

Call in your questions to the Foreplay Question voicemail dial eight, three three, my. Foreplay. That’s eight, three, three, my. The number four play, and we’ll use the questions for our mailbag episodes. All content is for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered as a substitute for therapy by a licensed clinician or as medical advice from a doctor. This podcast is copyrighted by Foreplay Media.

Speaker Ads [00:29:10]:

Hey, guys. I’m Natalie Pouche, and I’m the host of your new favorite podcast, humble and Hungry. It’s time to grab your cheese board and your favorite bottle of wine because we’re having a girls night, and we’re about to embark on a whole new journey as we juggle motherhood and blindly navigating through our 30s. We’re talking life, drama, dating, and everything in between. I recommend listening to Humble and Hungry on the Iheart app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.