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Our two sons, 11 and 9 years old, aren’t sure what Cialis and Viagra are for—but dammit, they’re starting to ask questions. They’re maturing as young men. Clearly the time has come to sit each boy down, put an arm around his shoulder and continue to lie like hell. Viagra? Well, son, it’s uhhh . . . it’s basically a Flintstones vitamin for grown-ups. And Cialis? That one prevents older gentlemen from growing a third arm out of their backs. Now go to bed.
There was a commercial for one of the erectile dysfunction pills before the screening of Iron Man 2. The older boy turned to me and said: “I don’t get it—does that stuff make you happy?” I briefly considered an experiment in honesty: Well, that dude there couldn’t get it up to pleasure his wife. Now he can. So she’s singing and playing the lute or whatever. Instead I fell back on the time-tested response of pretending to choke to death on my popcorn. Terrifying for the kids, but a real conversation shifter.
My boys love playing sports and watching them on TV. I was the same. Back in my day, that meant exposure to commercials that emphasized the virility of men: sports cars, power tools, beers that actually had alcohol and calories. Now a single football game can bring drug ads promising relief from an enlarged prostate, a feeble heart, clogged arteries and—especially—a quiet, unresponsive penis. To judge from all our failing parts, kids today must grow up thinking the human body was designed by Toyota.
Distracting our children from the sexual themes in TV advertising isn’t a new challenge. Neither my wife nor I will soon forget how hard it was to encourage our youngest to abandon his habit of running through the house singing, “Vivaaaaaaaa Viagra!”
And it’s not just the ED commercials. One afternoon during the 2008 Summer Olympics on CBC, they actually cut to a commercial for . . . K-Y Touch Massage and Personal Lubricant. It featured a fella in bed who gets all hot and eyebrow-archy when his wife mentions the words “personal” and “lubricant.” The product’s slogan: See what happens!
Well, here’s what happened: “Daddy, what’s a personal lubricant?”
Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip: there must be an answer to this question somewhere in this damn parenting book. As I sped toward Mexico that night, I remember thinking, “Thanks, CBC people. Thanks for running that personal lubricant ad at 4 p.m. during coverage of a major global sporting event. Remind me to drop by your homes around dinnertime and kick off a fun conversation with your kids about threesomes.”
I was so unprepared back then—a novice at changing the channel and the subject. But I’ve since achieved a level of Jedi mastery to rival Yoda himself. Talk about this man’s limp business we will not.
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