…so says a rather ubiquitous commercial that’s on during football games.
We watch a lot of football in my family. And as the mother of a little girl, I am beginning to realize that I don’t want to talk to my daughter about ED. How the hell do you explain these commercials to little kids? I’d imagine they’re not going away anytime soon, and I’m not looking forward to the first time my little Boo starts asking me what an erection is and why anyone who has one for more than four hours should call their doctor.
Have any of you ever had this issue (forgive me) come up? How did you handle it?
Oh, Erectile Dysfunction! I was wondering why there’d be eating disorder PSAs during football.
I’m no expert, but I figure it just goes with the whole sex talk. If she has gotten it already, tell her the pills help daddies give mommies ‘special hugs’ (ha). If she hasn’t, now’s as good a time as any.
There are a lot of things we *don’t *want to talk about. Some have to be talked about whethere we want to or not. Personally, I am not being facetious here, I would rather talk about ED than football, seriously.
How old is your daughter, Drain Bead? Mine loves this book, and I think it was a good intro to the whole sex talk. I don’t think we’ve gotten as far as talking about erections, but if she saw something about it and started asking questions, I think we’ve got enough background that I could handle it. (Although, I might start with, “Erections are something that happens to penises. Usually they don’t last four hours, and so boys should go to the doctor if they last that long.” Then see if she has questions - but that might well be enough information for her right there. I’m assuming that she knows that only boys have penises.)
Is she young enough that you can get away with telling her that some men, when they get older, get more tired than other men at certain times and can’t flex their muscles in the same way, and sometimes that pill can fix that?
Now try explaining Nuvaring or Tampax Pearls to a little boy.
This is one of several reasons why I often watch football on a small TV upstairs instead of the HD set in the family room. No daughters distracting me during the game.
And being a dad, my general answer to any sex questions from my daughters is “You should ask your mother about that.”
I had a very vigorous discussion, with feelings becoming more and more excitable, then an explosion of rhetoric, disseminating information everywhere, after which it quickly died down and I went to sleep.
I’m 30 and I watch the games with my dad and the commercials make us uncomfortable too. Neither of us wants to be thinking about erectile dysfunction at those times. Ick.
Why are you watching commercials with your children?
Remote controls make it real easy to mute during these. (Especially because the loudness generally goes way up during commercials.)
Don’t you think exposing your children to this constant blast of lies & half-truths, conspicuous consumption, and waste of resources is bad for them?
How are these commercials any different than, say, a commercial for Vagisil or Summer’s Eve? Oddly enough, as much of a prude as my mom was, she was pretty matter-of-fact about these types of things as a kid.
Incubus: Mom, whats [FeminineHygeneProduct] for?
Mom: Sometimes a woman’s vagina itches/gets infected/smells not-so-nice and that stuff fixes it.
Incubus: GROSS! :mad:
I have no children, so don’t know how I would handle it, but this reminds me of me asking my mom what an orgasm was when I was 8 or 9 years old- I’d been reading my sister’s Seventeen magazine and there used to be Q&As about sex quite frequently (this was in the mid 90s.) I also once asked my babysitter what a condom was for after seeing an ad on MTV. She told me that was a question I should ask my mom. So tell your kid to ask the babysitter!
This is how we tend to handle it as well. Too much information can be good for your kids.
They haven’t asked about ED yet, but I suspect the answer would be “some men have an issue where their penis doesn’t get erect for sex, that medication can help fix that.”
Although when they were much younger we told them to ask that question again in a few years when they could understand the answer. If I recall, that was my response the first time the Holocaust came up. I really wasn’t ready to explain systematic genocide to a four year old (if I could ever explain it).
I can feel a bit smug about this issue, since I had the foresight to marry someone with a Masters in Reproductive Physiology, and thus was able to tell my daughters to talk to the expert. Computer or math questions, see me.
Anyhow, the answer is simple. They are pills to help you throw footballs through tires better.
Computer or math questions, see me.