I’m of the general opinion that the pharmaceutical industry is fundamentally and systemically uncool. It’s pretty obvious that the aims of pharmaceutical companies are at odds with the general aims of Americans (and, I suppose, other people) when it comes to their health. We want to have fewer health issues, to cure ourselves of the the ones we do have, and to not have to spend huge amounts of money on drugs to keep ourselves from dying/being in pain/feeling like shit/going bald. Pharmaceutical companies, on the other hand, want us to have more health issues, to take drugs to treat our health problems forever without ever curing them, and to go on indefinitely spending huge amounts of money on their drugs in order to keep ourselves from dying/being in pain/feeling like shit/going bald. In other words, pharmaceutical companies are in the business of inventing disorders and creating drugs designed to treat them over long periods of time. Long-term treatment equals long-term profits, while cures equal dick. Anyone who believes that there’s a pharmaceutical company out there looking for a cure for anything probably also believes that there’s opium in Jagermeister and that you can get high by following the advice in the Anarchist’s Cookbook.
Enter Flomax, the latest drug in a long line of elixirs designed to treat disorders that didn’t exist before the drug designed to treat them got patented. You know, drugs like Requip, for that terrible disease known as Restless Legs Syndrome. Do you know what Flomax does? It cures a disorder called BPH, which I don’t care to research because the symptoms are fucking unbelievably silly: waking up to go, stopping and starting, going often, and, the best one, WEAK STREAM.
Are waking up to take a piss, stopping and starting, or going often really so disruptive that we need a pill? I wake up to pee every night, and I didn’t even know I needed medical help. I wonder what else I put up with that’s slightly inconvenient that I ought to be taking a pill for. Is there a pill that will make my hair so impervious to tangles that I need not brush it? Something I can take that will arrest the growth of my toenails so I’ll only have to clip them once a year? Stopping and starting has never really been a problem for me, but I don’t imagine that it hurts, or that it even really matters AT ALL. I guess going often would be a problem if one had to find a toilet every hour or so, or at least that’s what the Flomax commercial implies. The ad features a group of middle-aged men on a mountain biking trip, their jocularity heavily stifled by the fact that one candy-ass member of the group has to stop every hour or two to have a slash. Then they’re out kayaking because, you know, old dudes love to get together in groups of 8 or so and do some extreme outdoor sports. Imagine the horror of having to pee while out kayaking! The whole adventure would be ruined! Unless, of course, you had a penis or something. Maybe the only thing about being male that I envy is the ability to pee anywhere, anytime, without exposing your ass to the cold and the public, and without running the risk of peeing all over yourself. But apparently Flomax forgot that men have that ability and invented a drug that will regulate their weak little bladders so that they only have to pee when they want to. Because a real man is in charge of his bladder! Only girls and faggots let their bladders get in the way of their good times!
But Flomax isn’t all about curbing frequent urination. It’s also about preventing the embarrassment that comes with a weak stream. Real men are powerful, and what better way is there to demonstrate your masculine animal power than with a urine stream that kicks rocks up off the floor of the forest where you’re mountain biking or kills the fish in the water below your kayak when you aim your stream at them? You don’t want Jim coming over after you’ve just peed on a redwood and saying, “Bob, we’ve been friends for a long time, and I like having you out on these bike trips, but something about your stream is making me wonder if you’re man enough for what we’re trying to do out here.” Seriously, there’s a pill that makes the stream of urine coming out of the penis stronger, because a weak stream is so embarrassing that it requires medical treatment.
I don’t mean to get on a soap box or anything, but I’m pretty sure that there are a few actual disorders out there that warrant a little more attention than weak stream. You know, stuff like cancer, AIDS, asthma, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc. But then, this is the same pharmaceutical industry that has produced three drugs that allow old people to get boners and engage in sexual activity that might (and often does) kill them and has given us Botox and more baldness drugs than there are snarkily-named microbrews in Oregon. I’ll leave the interpretation to you.
11 Comments
March 20, 2008 at 8:52 am
The trouble with weak stream for men not vanity. It is spashing your shoes and the bathroom floor.
The ultimate Ewwwww!
Having worked as a janitor, I would be more than happy to have set up “Men Only” drinking fountains and coffee pots infused with Flomax!
April 29, 2008 at 3:20 am
Maybe you should stick to subjects you know about. Enlarged prostates have been a problem for men for 200,000 years, at least. I’m not taking Flomax because I’m leery of the pharmaceutical industry, but I do wake up about every hour to go pee. I’m lucky if I get two or three uninterrupted hours of sleep a night.
Weak stream means you go from emptying your bladder just like that, to standing there waiting for it to happen, waiting, waiting. Then when it finally starts, it’s a pretty big exertion to keep it going, and then at the end it just dribbles.
But that’s not all. So you stand there trying to empty your urethra so you won’t have stains on your pants. You have to exert a large effort on your bladder, then push up on your perineum, and then squeeze some more out. Repeat four or five times, and you’re still getting stains on your undies, but maybe it won’t be enough to go through your pants.
And I’m only 51, my doc says my prostate is “just fine.” It’s true there’s a little manly enjoyment involved in weak stream .vs. strong stream. It’s fun to be able to really shoot it out there, and you kind of miss that when you get older. But that’s the least of the annoyance of weak stream, and it’s not nearly the main thing that makes me think about taking Flomax.
As for other diseases, well, there is a lot of money being spent on those, but there’s a lot of profit to be made in drugs like Flomax too. Maybe the profits from Flomax will help fund research on your favorite disease.
April 29, 2008 at 3:22 am
I know all about those problems, Dale. I’m not making sport of the conditions that men suffer from, I’m merely pointing out how weird the subtext of Flowmax ads is.
April 29, 2008 at 3:37 am
You know, I find it pretty offensive that you’re implying that “faggots” sit down and pee like a girl. As a gay man, I occasionally sit down and pee, but usually it’s because my erect penis is too stiff to bend down and aim in to the toilet properly. But the real issue is that you say that men who have “weak stream” or who sit down to pee aren’t real men, and are “faggots”. If I change your title to “Flowmax to men: You don’t want to be stupid like a nigger, do you?” it sounds pretty fucking racist, right?
While the gist of your post about big pharma making drugs for things that we never needed drugs for before, and don’t need now, IS A GOOD ONE, your idiotic ignorance totally mutes any chance you have at making a good argument.
April 29, 2008 at 3:41 am
Didn’t you notice that I was implying that it was Flomax that was sending that message? The commercial gives one the impression that men with bladder problems are somehow not manly enough. I was satirizing that fact. I don’t give a shit how anyone pees. Lots of the men I know pee sitting down, which is cool with me because it keeps pee from getting all over the place. Again, I’M not saying men with weak stream are “faggots,” FLOMAX is.
April 29, 2008 at 4:03 am
This was totally on Curb Your Enthusiasm:
“Larry Pees Sitting Down”
http://youtube.com/watch?v=eq6WFGvdat0
April 29, 2008 at 4:44 am
I’m all for freedom of expression. And the right to say what ever you please. However, in the competition of ideas between enlightened individuals your posting is bankrupt.
“Enter Flomax, the latest drug in a long line of elixirs designed to treat disorders that didn’t exist before the drug designed to treat them got patented.”
Totally incorrect. Flowmax treats a known condition. I would guess 100’s of thousands of men suffer from enlarged prostates. It is a serious men’s health issue. And my father used Flowmax to get relief for years before he had a TURP. Years spent getting up 3 or 4 or 5 times a night to relieve himself. Years spent with a constant sense of fullness. Years spent needing to urinate, but being unable to.
I hardly think that enlarged prostate, often a sign of prostate cancer, and the relief of the symptoms of that is a trivial issue. And unlike your comment at the end:
I’m pretty sure that there are that there are a few actual disorders…stuff like cancer…
Flowmax does help men with prostate cancer, effectively deal with the symptoms of their disease.
If a man wrote a blog entry belittling a medication for osteoporosis, you’d be all over him as a misogynist. However, it seems fine to show disdain and trivialize a real medical condition which primarily affects men.
Instead you write as if these source of physical discomfort which hamper both quality of life and health are unimportant. is on the same level as making your hair hair impervious to tangles. How about some compassion for men who suffer from real physical aliments instead of trivializing their pain.
There are plenty of real issues to be upset about in the pharmaceutical industry. Try to do a little research first.
April 29, 2008 at 5:24 am
Again, have you all lost your ability to smell a joke? I don’t deny that there are conditions that Flomax treats, I just happen to find the “manly man” tenor of the commercial funny. The message is basically that having a prostate condition is an embarrassment in front of the guys, a sign that you’re not man enough to go out on biking and kayaking trips with the other manly men who can hold their urine.
But guess what? I get up 3-5 times a night to pee, and I don’t think I need medicine for it. And guess what else? I make fun of Boniva constantly. It is actually possible to empathize with people’s suffering and also have a laugh at the fact that commercials for pharmaceuticals make the most trivial of inconveniences seem like dire tragedies that can only be remedied by an overpriced pill with horrific side effects. So, to boil it all down, men with genuine health problems have my sympathy, pharmaceutical companies that try to shame them into spending a fortune on questionable medicine to treat those problems do not.
May 10, 2008 at 8:08 am
Hmmm. So ladies. Apparently we can now even the playing field.
http://www.femalefreedom.ca/
May 23, 2008 at 5:38 pm
:(
May 23, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Damn it! Well, you’ll just have to keep an eye out for the commercial.
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