Permission note

by Susie
Wingnuts say any comparison is silly, since Viagra is used to treat a “medical condition”. But there’s more to this story:

An Ohio State Senator is turning the tables on men seeking to regulate women’s access to reproductive health. Sen. Nina Turner (D-Cleveland) has introduced legislation regulating men’s access to erectile dysfunction drugs. The Dayton Daily News has the details:

Before getting a prescription for Viagra or other erectile dysfunction drugs, men would have to see a sex therapist, receive a cardiac stress test and get a notarized affidavit signed by a sexual partner affirming impotency, if state Sen. Nina Turner has her way.The Cleveland Democrat introduced Senate Bill 307 this week.

A critic of efforts to restrict abortion and contraception for women, Turner says she is concerned about men’s reproductive health… Turner said if state policymakers want to legislate women’s health choices through measures such as House Bill 125, known as the ‘Heartbeat bill,’ they should also be able to legislate men’s reproductive health.

Turner’s bill tracks FDA guidelines which recommends doctors determine whether the rootcause of men’s sexual disfunction is physical or psychological. She describes her bill as an effort to “legislate it the same way mostly men say they want to legislate a woman’s womb.”

There have been similar efforts in other states. An Illinois bill would require men to watch a “horrific video” on the side effects of Viagra. In Virginia, Sen. Janet Howell (D) submitted a bill requiring men to undergo a digital rectal exam before receiving a prescription for erectile disfunction drugs.

But there’s actually a legitimate reason to regulate the drug, at least, if you follow wingnut logic. It seems that using Viagra not only results in extramarital affairs, but in more sexually transmitted disease:

Viagra use has been linked to a dramatic increase in sexually transmitted diseases in older men because it fuels extramarital affairs, British doctors say.

New Zealand figures on rates of sexual infections among older men were not available, but many sexual-health physicians say the British findings ring true.

[…] According to British health information, rates of sexual infections such as gonorrhea more than tripled in men aged 45 to 64 a rate more than four times that of the increase in rates among teenagers.

There were also dramatic increases in other sexual infections in the same British male group, with the number of chlamydia cases increasing by 315 per cent between 1997 and 2006.

Well! Obviously any decent, God-fearing person sees that it only makes good sense to discourage the use of this marriage- and health-destroying drug!