Iraqi Impotence in Every Sense
Viagra importation and use is way up in Iraq. Pharmacists say that the violence and tension has reduced Iraqi libido, so more men need help to get interested in sex. The pills are being smuggled or imported.
The psycho-biological effects of national crisis are increasingly easy to trace in this way. Consumption of internet pornography dropped off considerably in the United States in the weeks after September 11, for instance. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the fertility rate plummeted so far Russians were threatened with extinction in a couple of centuries if things continued like that.
The Iraqis seem also to be going through a crisis that depresses libido. Of course, since viagra was not imported under the Baath, we don’t really have a control, and don’t know if a pent-up normal demand is now being met, or if viagra use is way up in its own right. The subjective sense of the pharmacist quoted here is that it is the former.