ABSTRACT
A four-page full-color advertisement for Viagra tablets has appeared in the latest issues of the American Psychologist, the flagship scientific journal of the American Psychological Association. In the worst-case scenario, Viagra could cause both men and women to feel resentful and less erotic—women, because the drug eliminates their sense of desirability and sexual efficacy; men, because the pill is just further proof that they are less potent and less masculine than they used to be. But Viagra's challenges to sex research go beyond ethical conflicts. Pharmaceutical industry funding endorses an essentialist, biomedical model of sexuality that ignores relationality, the social construction of sex, and most sociocultural factors. Furthermore, industry-sponsored research won't examine how use of Viagra affects couple power dynamics or the subtle effects on sexual techniques and communication.
