Royce, 30, doesn’t have erectile dysfunction in the strict clinical sense. He’s fit, has a steady girlfriend, and tells me that he’s only struggled to “get it up” a handful of times. But even those few moments felt mortifying enough that he turned to ED medication—the same kind that used to punctuate late-night TV or a sheepish request at a yearly physical. Today, the product has been rebranded for men like him: younger, city-dwelling men in the market for discreet shipping and a quick fix.
The underlying promise hasn’t changed: that it will make sex better and less embarrassing.
Royce—who declined to share his last name with me—is relying on the pills more than he ever expected. “I don’t want to have to use that because it takes the spontaneity out of sex,” Royce shared, “but I’m a little stuck.” Similarly, James, 25, sought out ED medication to ensure he was “always perfectly hard whenever I wanted to be.” He assumed women wouldn’t like him if he wasn’t “performing at 100 percent.”