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Time for a Male Anti-Sex Pill
Mary Ann Chastain / AP Photo
In the wake of the Sanford scandal, the only hope for American public life not becoming an endlessly embarrassing comic opera now lies with Big Pharma. The nation needs a new Manhattan Project—and this one should have bipartisan support.
Plus, read more Daily Beast contributors' reactions to Mark Sanford's flameout.
The most practical idea I recall hearing during the whole sordid Monica Lewinsky scandal came from Warren Beatty. Why couldn’t Clinton have taken some pill, Beatty mused, according to a mutual friend, so that this whole arena of human activity would have been of no interest to him, at least while he was in office?
Rush research on a pill that zaps the male sex drive while leaving the other seemingly testosterone-related aspects of a man’s charms intact is now an urgent national priority.
At the time, I thought it was pithy. Now I realize it’s the next moonshot for the pharmaceutical industry. Which brings me to Mark Sanford’s legacy for health-care reform.
I don’t know about you, but Sanford feels like the last straw. I can’t stomach hearing another alpha male pol who just days earlier was offering boring soliloquies on Social Security or the economy suddenly moaning softly about the “healing” or “forgiveness” “process” on which they’re embarking. It’s riveting and repellant at the same time. There’s only so much self-parody a culture can take before we’re swallowed up by our own ridiculousness.
A Manhattan Project to develop the sexual disinterest pill for men (call it the anti-Viagra) should have bipartisan support, because it’s not obvious in advance who would benefit most from the end of these implosions. For every John Edwards or Eliot Spitzer, there’s a John Ensign or Mark Sanford.
I know the drugmakers feel like they’ve already done their civic duty this week, what with coughing up $80 billion over 10 years to help pay for health reform. But health costs will only kill us in the long run. Rush research on a pill that zaps the male sex drive while leaving the other seemingly testosterone-related aspects of a man’s charms intact is now an urgent national priority. Since it’s obviously too late to revive any sense of discretion, the only hope for American public life not becoming an endlessly embarrassing comic opera now lies with Big Pharma.
At dinner Tuesday night, when my wife and I were discussing the likely enough denouement to The Sanford Disappearance, our 12-year-old daughter asked, “How come all male politicians cheat on their wives?”
Her wiser 15-year-old older cousin replied, “It’s not just politicians—they’re just the ones that get in the news.”
With modern medicine, we have the power to end this premature loss of innocence. And the beauty part is it only requires men to give up seven or so minutes of pleasure on rare occasions—occasions around which so many seem impelled to organize their lives, and around which empires (or at least governorships) rise and fall.
Matt Miller is a management consultant, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and the host of public radio’s popular political week-in-review, Left, Right & Center. His new book is The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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I've never had trouble NOT cheating on a girlfriend, and at most politicians' age you're not going to find yourself drunk at a party full of single people. You'd have to go waaaaay out of your way to cheat. Instead of creating an impotence drug lets just stop being scum-bags.
This should be a pharmaceutical R&D priority. Prescribe for keeping politicians, actors, corporate big boys and other importants--and their families--out of trouble and suffering. Also doll out to maturing men who so desperately believe sexual conquest is so vital to their self esteem. Sex is way too important to us all in any case. Dignity is insidiously sexy, I mean attractive,
Remember that in each affair, there is a willing woman who knows the guy is married. This is not a male-only problem.
Also remember that there are million of men who put their family first and resist the temptation. Sanford is not one of them, but don't punish all men for his self indulgence and stupidity. Though, pill for male politician may be something that should be done.
We could even call such a pill "Niagra," since it makes things fall! (Apologies for this cheap shot.)
Seriously, though I appreciate the humor of this column, I believe that most philandering is not driven by the promise of sex itself. It happen because the participant is seeking some emotion or feeling that he (or she) is not getting in his regular relationship. If intimacy, companionship, support, or love is missing (or perceived to be missing), then this creates the desire to seek it elsewhere. There are many forms of this, and of course edge cases where it really is just about sex.
I have no insight into Sanford's marriage, I'm just saying that affairs are not necessarily about an uncontrolled sex drive.
Seems to me the logical answer is the leave the men at home and elect women. :-)
Talk about "out of the mouth of babes". I find it so sad that a young girl of 15 would have to have such an insight about marriage and adultery. So sad for us all.
The Anti-Viagra can only be named Niagra. And the Manhattan Project can only be called The Niagra Falls Project
Either that, or admit that humans aren't naturally monogamous, that something like 50% of men and women cheat on their partners at some point, and live accordingly.
If people were open and honest about their impulses from the start, and pursued them in a way that didn't hurt other people, there would be no problem. It's not "cheating" if everyone knows about it and is ok with it.
Thank you.
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