newjerseynewsroom.com

BY SUSIE WILSON

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

SEX MATTERS

Spend a few days with me and you'll see how I mutter at the TV when ads for the sexual enhancement drugs Viagra, Cialis, or Levitra appear. The ads are omnipresent, particularly when major sports events are broadcast.

One morning I turned on the TV to watch a live French Open tennis match in Paris. And what to my unbelieving eyes did I see but an ad for Cialis – at 7:15 in the morning.

With or without coffee, I thought it was over the top to hear about the problems of erectile dysfunction and four-hour erections this bright and early. Who wouldn't? (The "four-hour" phrase, by the way, is so commonplace now that I'm sure it will appear in the next edition of Webster's Dictionary.

So, you can imagine my interest in the recent New York Times article "Citing Risks, Lawmakers Seek to Curb Drug Commercials," which featured a photo that struck a bell: that of a very handsome African-American couple looking at each other in an inviting, sexy way. The photo came from an ad for "36-hour Cialis" and the caption read: "One Congressman wants to ban prime-time ads for sexual aids like Cialis."

I was hooked.

The story reported that a "handful of legislators are taking aim at the 60-second spots that have made viewers familiar with maladies like male urinary urgency and deficient eyelashes - not to mention side effects like four-hour erections."

The legislator most upset about these sexual aid ads is Representative James P. Moran, Democrat of Virginia, who is sponsoring a bill in the House of Representatives that would ban advertisements for these products from prime-time television, on decency grounds.

Decent? Indecent? I had never looked at the ads from this perspective. One person's definition of decency may be another's definition of indecency. A firm believer in the First Amendment, I'm leery of banning the ads because of their sexual content.

But perhaps there should be restrictions on the time of day the ads should air and the number of times they should appear. I would be willing to debate the issue. How would I feel if advertisements for sex toys and vibrators became commonplace on national TV? I wouldn't like seeing those very much, and certainly not at 7:15 in the morning.

My major complaint about the ads for sexual aids does not have to do with morality. I mutter about them, because stations refuse to run prime-time advertisements for condoms while they accept ads for erectile dysfunction. In other words, I want equal time for condom ads, and I want them aimed at adults and teenagers.

We have, as you probably know, a serious problem with teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the United States. Surely, advertisements showing the benefits of condom use could help change the very poor teen pregnancy and STD outcomes for our population.

Whenever I think about the possibility of seeing well-executed ads for condoms on TV, I remember a moment some years ago in the airport in Stockholm, Sweden. I was walking through it when I saw a sign in English on a counter that attracted my attention. It read: "Welcome to Sweden. Please help yourself to one or several of the products in the bowl below these words. We do not want you to contract an infection while you are visiting our country, nor do we want you to give one to those who live here."

It was roughly 7:15 a.m., and I was pretty jet-lagged from the overnight flight, but I still remember the feeling of amazement that swept over me. "Never," I thought, "would visitors see such a display upon their arrival at Kennedy, Newark, or any other international airport in the U.S."

Politicians mouth words about the importance of prevention and preventative medicine in the health care debate. If they are serious about it, then I wish they would craft legislation not to eliminate ads on the basis of what makes some people squeamish, but rather support ads that are critical to good public health practices for all citizens.

Should the day arrive when major TV stations run thoughtful, accurate ads for condoms – even at 7:15 a.m. – I promise to stop muttering.

Susie Wilson, former executive coordinator of the Network for Family Life Education at Rutgers University's Center for Applied and Professional Psychology (now renamed Answer), is a national leader in the fight for effective sexuality and HIV/AIDS education and for prevention of adolescent pregnancy. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .