# Silly Viagra question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 18, 2006, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-viagra-question/348878 "2006-03-18T06:42:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-viagra-question/348878/21 "2006-03-19T20:15:46Z")
> [@jasonh300](#): > > I hope they haven’t given up on that completely. My wife was having some problems with her hormone replacement pills a year ago (she had a complete historectomy about 4 years ago) and she was concerned that she didn’t want to have sex at all. The doctor gave her a prescription for Viagra and they really worked. The first time she took one, she didn’t tell me and I’d fallen asleep already. About an hour after she took it, she woke me up out of a dead sleep and kept me up for the next 3 or 4 hours! It does work. I remember hearing about trials with women when they first began, and then not much. Interesting to get your feedback. ---
**Author:** ![Spacekat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@Spacekat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spacekat)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-viagra-question/348878/22 "2006-03-20T01:29:07Z")
> [@jasonh300](#): > > About an hour after she took it, she woke me up out of a dead sleep and kept me up for the next 3 or 4 hours! It does work. That’s fantastic! This is the thing with drugs - the drug companies do tests that show whether or not something tends to work for the couple hundred patients they picked out as a “representative” sample. The fact that, on average, something didn’t work for that particular group, though, doesn’t mean it can’t work for one person, or even a subset of people that just hasn’t been identified. For example, there is a heart medication recently approved that only seems to work on African Americans. People of other genetic backgrounds aren’t really helped by it, but if they’d only ever tested a mixed and mostly caucasian group they might not have known about this. I’m so glad that the two of you found something that worked for you. This is a huge issue and really impacts the lives of a lot of people in that situation. > [@cwthree](#): > > Perhaps this is because women don’t get much visual feedback from clitoral erection? Does the clitoris need to be really erect to do its job? I suspect that women rely more on increased vaginal moisture as evidence of being ready/interested in sex. You’re right that lubrication is an important factor and certainly a good indicator for women, but there is also an important mass of erectile tissue, not just around the visible clitoris but also surrounding the vagina called the orgasmic platform that becomes engorged with blood much like a man’s penis and contracts rhythmically during orgasm. {Possibly TMI? I could actually see this when I dissected a female cadaver, so I’m not repeating some of the quackery you hear about female anatomy and the silly debate over whether we have orgasms. Why they don’t teach about this in 6th grade health class like they do the male anatomy I will never know.} This is where it was hoped Viagra would go to work, and perhaps for folks like Mrs. Jasonh it does. ---
**Author:** ![Jacob\_Silj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Jacob\_Silj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jacob_Silj)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-viagra-question/348878/23 "2006-03-21T15:50:18Z")
since the OP has been addressed, and to keep from opening a new post, what I’ve always wondered about Viagara was, does it keep one from ejaculating, or do you ejacualte as you normally would, but just remain erect afterwards? ---
**Author:** ![Spacekat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@Spacekat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spacekat)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-viagra-question/348878/24 "2006-03-21T18:57:13Z")
> [@Jacob Silj](#): > > since the OP has been addressed, and to keep from opening a new post, what I’ve always wondered about Viagara was, does it keep one from ejaculating, or do you ejacualte as you normally would, but just remain erect afterwards? What Viagra does specifically is prevent the breakdown of a chemical that your body makes in order to open up blood vessels. The blood vessel opening is something that happens naturally in order to cause an erection, it just wasn’t working well enough or long enough for the fellas who needed the drug. So that’s it - blood gets into the spongy tissue of the penis more efficiently and for a longer time than would otherwise have happened. This is why it’s an improvement over previous drugs - you don’t get an erection until you would have normally (plus you don’t have to put a needle in your penis, which seems like a great thing to avoid, to me). It should not affect ejaculation timing at all, except inasmuch as it makes ejaculation possible - there are other good, safe methods that can be used to change that, if necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-viagra-question/348878/25 "2006-03-21T19:18:31Z")
> [@Jacob Silj](#): > > since the OP has been addressed, and to keep from opening a new post, what I’ve always wondered about Viagara was, does it keep one from ejaculating, or do you ejacualte as you normally would, but just remain erect afterwards? Seems like Viagra must be the most misunderstood drug on the planet. It’s not designed to make you last longer. It’s deigned to let guys that can’t ordinarily get it up, get it up. That is all. It’s not some kind of wonder performance-enhancing drug. If you have normal function, there is no point in taking it, as it will not help you in any way. (Being still in my 20s, I have not had cause to test this. But I did a chemistry major and studied the mechanism of sildenafil, the active ingredient.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-viagra-question/348878.md?page=1)