Spanish men say "hola" to increased libidos

MADRID, Spain — A few months ago a man walked into a pharmacy in Madrid, pulled out two toy guns and told the attendants to hand over all the Viagra in stock.

Two hours later, in what was perhaps a show of gratitude, he returned with two bouquets of roses, before being arrested.

Such are the extremes to which men in this famously macho country will go to obtain the male impotency drug — nicknamed sexo azul, or blue sex, by Spaniards — which costs $104 for a box of eight blue diamond-shaped tablets and has become as popular with teenage clubbers as it is with men in their 70s.

"There has been a Viagra explosion in Spain," said Dr. Carlos San Martin, the country's leading sexologist. "Some people are taking it for physiological reasons, but Viagra is also becoming a social phenomenon, a recreational drug that men of all ages are using because they want to be supermen."

Women are demanding their boyfriends get prescriptions. Young partygoers are buying tablets from dealers in discos for as much as $80 a pill, cutting them into pieces, and distributing them among their friends, even though doing so diminishes the drug's effectiveness, specialists say.

Spanish doctors say some men are even faking symptoms to try to get the tablets, whose main ingredient, sildenafil citrate, helps increase the blood flow to the penis and is effective for up to four hours.

Pfizer, the drug's maker, says Spain has moved into the vanguard of a European Viagra trend in part because economic prosperity has transformed the country from a relaxed Mediterranean culture, where the siesta was sacrosanct, into an Anglo-Saxon-style, workaholic nation.

This new stress, said Belen Alguacil Arconada, a Pfizer spokeswoman, is wreaking havoc with the Spanish male's libido.

"We used to have a siesta, to sleep all afternoon, to eat well," she said. "But now we have become a fast-food nation where everyone is stressed out, and this is not good for male sexual performance."

Pfizer says it sold nearly 1 million boxes of Viagra in Spain last year, the equivalent of one box for every 17 men ages 18 and older. Globally, Pfizer earned $1.66 billion from Viagra sales in 2006.

San Martin, the sexologist, confirms that many couples complain they do not have enough time for sex and use Viagra as a sexual crutch.

"For me, it has become impossible during the week," he said. "I talk about sex all day long, and when I come home at 11 p.m., it is very difficult to perform."

Sociologists say an increased willingness to address sexual problems reflects Spain's sexual liberation after the repressiveness of the Franco years. Once one of the most conservative Catholic countries in Europe, Spain now is among the most liberal, with gay marriage, legalized abortion, and one of the highest divorce rates on the continent.

Dr. Eldiberto Fernandez, a urologist who specializes in erectile dysfunction, says talking about sex has lost its taboo.

"In the past," Fernandez said, "men would come to see me and spend 40 minutes talking about their urinary output before finally whispering, 'Doctor I have a problem, can you help me?' Now they are no longer embarrassed."

Fernandez recalled that a woman recently urged her husband to seek Viagra but that the husband later begged him to stop writing prescriptions.

"My equipment works fine with my mistress," the man said. "It's my wife that's the problem."

The increasing sexual assertiveness of Spanish women has contributed to the Viagra trend. Barbara Alfonso, who last year opened Spain's first escort service for women, in Barcelona, says Spanish men are struggling to adapt to sexual liberation among women.

"The new generation of women in Spain are less influenced by religion and tradition and are willing to do what it takes to have good sex, whether that means going to an escort service or giving their boyfriends Viagra," she said.

One such woman is Carmen, 45, a chic, twice-divorced information technology executive and Sophia Loren look-alike, who is frustrated by her boyfriend's sexual performance.

The Viagra she insisted he take worked, she says, but she decided anyway to leave her boyfriend, an urbane 55-year-old psychologist, for a 32-year-old unemployed student athlete.

"Viagra is not the solution many Spaniards think it is," said Carmen, who declined to use her last name. "I came to realize that the problem wasn't my boyfriend's sexual prowess. The problem was him."

Now, she added, "I have sex six times a day, but I do miss going to the opera."