Perhaps the man who would order something that makes him feel virile also feels embarrassed about having to order something that will...make him feel virile?

I don't know, I was just told tonight in my spam that I could take my woman to "love heaven." Guess I'd have to find me a woman first, though.
Terezia | 03.18.08 - 9:38 pm | #

"And, at the same time, there was a great deal of assurance that all would be sent in discreet packaging...If it is shameful and must be hidden, why do it?"

Because they don't want their moms to see what they're ordering by mail?
Jody Tresidder | 03.19.08 - 8:07 am | #

It is scary, pure madness, I almost choked on the raw meat I was gnawing on just reading it.
John J. Simmins | 03.19.08 - 8:08 am | #

From C.S Lewis's Prince Caspian, second in The Chronicles of Narnia series:

[Trumpkin has just put an arrow into a bear that had sprung on Lucy. Susan, who had previously shown herself to be the better archer, had missed with her own shot. She explains]:

"I was so afraid it might be, you know - one of our kind of bears, a talking bear." She hated killing things.

"That's the trouble of it," said Trumpkin, "when most of the beasts have gone enemy and gone dumb, but there are still some of the other kind left. You never know, and you daren't wait to see." . . . .

[While Peter, Edmund, and Trumpkin skin the bear, Susan and Lucy go off so they don't have to watch]

When they had sat down [Lucy]said: "Such a horrible idea has come into my head, Su."

"What's that?"

"Wouldn't it be dreadful if some day, in our own world, at home, men started going wild inside, like the animals here, and still looked like men, so that you'd never know which were which?"

"We've got enough to bother about here and now in Narnia," said the practical Susan, "without imagining things like that."
John V | 03.19.08 - 9:16 am | #

John V - absolutely spot on.
Drusilla | Homepage | 03.19.08 - 12:49 pm | #

Drusilla misses the point. The reason for discreet packaging and the shameful thing about ordering Viagra (in the secular mindset) is not that one is having casual sex, or acting like an animal. The shameful thing is that the man is unable to do this "naturally" without chemical supplement. The shame isn't in having animal sex, it is in the lack of virility, i.e. if you were a real man, you'd be having lots of animal sex without any pills.
Anonymous | 03.19.08 - 3:46 pm | #

Dear Anonymous,

I'm sorry, but I believe that you may be the person missing the point, here.

My own email accounts are bombarded constantly, on a daily basis, with such advertisements and I for one despise them. There's nothing in these sicko-ads pertaining to virility, but there is the insinuation--often in very graphic terms--that by taking these drugs, using these devices, and smearing these creams, you will suddenly become the desireable being that makes women swoon. Not so fast, Buddy!

These ads are about as appealing, accurate, or logical as a certain condom [television] advert that finds its most unfortunate airings during primetime--you're a disrespectful pig, so implies the commercial, unless you first hit the bar's condom dispenser in the latrine before picking up women....and if you'll just do so, women will find you more instantly attractive than the rest of the pigs. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies....

What's going on here is a sad re-schooling of morals. Instead of telling the truth--that what makes a "real man" truly desirable is the respect he shows in waiting until marriage to even wonder about his virility--animal [read: base, unthinking, selfish] sexuality is praised, idolized even, as the key to a woman's heart. A man who buys condoms/Viagra/herbal "enhancers" before picking up women in a bar is still a pig. He is still just as disrespectful. And his one true desire is not to show any women how manly he is in the truest sense of the word. No, what such a man is really after is getting his own selfish satisfaction without any godly commitment, and making the process of doing so as acceptable to any undiscerning, self-loathing woman who will allow herself to be used in such a way.

The truly shameful thing here, even in the secular mindset, is not wanting to let the neighbors know you are just such a pig. The actual issue, even in the secular mindset, is that even the weakest conscience agrees, deep down, with Natural Law and therefore knows that a man's virility comes in dead last in making any meaningful, long-lasting, intimate connection with any real, thinking, worthwhile woman of character.

...And what is most depressing about the ads--especially for women--is the knowledge that so many men have such low opinions of themselves as potential husbands and providers that they actually believe the hype....

In His Grace, miki

P.S. Dawn--I love the new blog! Beautiful setup, Love. Hope to see you at Chesterton this summer!
Miki Tracy | Homepage | 03.19.08 - 9:08 pm | #

Miki,
Your are over-egging some otherwise reasonable points!

A basic but sound definition of "virility" is simply "the masculine property of being capable of copulation and procreation".

Which doesn't quite square with your comment here: The actual issue, even in the secular mindset, is that even the weakest conscience agrees, deep down, with Natural Law and therefore knows that a man's virility comes in dead last in making any meaningful, long-lasting, intimate connection with any real, thinking, worthwhile woman of character.

Most of the rest of what you say is fair enough: these ads are snake oil, crude, flat out untrue, designed to promote false anxiety, frequently extremely offensive and apparently unstoppable.

But there is some point to virility.
Jody Tresidder | 03.19.08 - 11:10 pm | #

"But there is some point to virility."

Within the confines of marriage, yes. Without marriage, it's little more than apeish posturing....and in the case of promoting the humanist agenda for econimic gains and profit, crass posturing, at that.

In His Grace, miki
Miki Tracy | Homepage | 03.20.08 - 12:15 am | #

Dawn, i finished your book yesterday. Now i'm 34, i'm grown man, i started to be a catholic as a very young person. I live, I allways lived, in chaste, but deep in my heart i never believed in that. Chaste was just one of dogmatic rules, which i chosen my self so i should be true to them. It was only my victim for God and nothing except it. Thank You very much for your courage.
bartek | 04.06.09 - 8:28 am | #