--- title: Viagra Prescriptions: The End of Sex Was Predicted, But Didn't Happen description: March 27, 1998: Viagra is approved by the FDA canonical: https://time.com/3748244/viagra-history/ author: Jennifer Latson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-27T14:30:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:40:56.999Z article:section: History og:title: Viagra Prescriptions: The End of Sex Was Predicted, But Didn't Happen og:description: March 27, 1998: Viagra is approved by the FDA og:url: https://time.com/3748244/viagra-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9abb2cc4a897adbe/6987840a0b72e3534e6de35a/viagra.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Small blue Viagra pills, Pfizer's pharma og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Viagra Prescriptions: The End of Sex Was Predicted, But Didn't Happen twitter:description: March 27, 1998: Viagra is approved by the FDA twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9abb2cc4a897adbe/6987840a0b72e3534e6de35a/viagra.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Experts Got Wrong About Viagra > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=bebca246-a93e-45de-bd93-c36512250e9c&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=bebca246-a93e-45de-bd93-c36512250e9c&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How I Learned About Sex [Watch (HLS stream): How I Learned About Sex](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/5AudUKuq.m3u8) (3:38)  _Published 2014-11-10. Dr. Ruth and others share their stories_ by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson Mar 27, 2015 2:30 PM UTC  Small blue Viagra pills, separated by machine, in 1998 Small blue Viagra pills, separated by machine, in 1998 Suzanne Opton—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson Mar 27, 2015 2:30 PM UTC It was the miracle drug to beat all miracle drugs; an instant bestseller that topped the sales figures of Big Pharma’s other greatest hits: Prozac and Rogaine. After the FDA approved Viagra on this day, March 27, in 1998, sales of the drug rose quickly — pumped by an early rush that yielded at least 10,000 scripts a day, [per a TIME cover story about the drug](http://time.com/vault/issue/1998-05-04/page/1/) — and had staying power, as evidenced by [Pfizer’s annual profit of about $1.8 billion](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/17/viagra-teva-idUSL2N0JW16V20131217) as of 2013 and the fact that our email inboxes are still routinely barraged with spam offers for the drug. It was a magic bullet for many men, but one that TIME initially feared would herald “the end of sex as we know it.” “Could there be a product more tailored to the easy-solution-loving, sexually insecure American psyche than this one?” Bruce Handy wondered in the 1998 piece. There were many who saw chemically-induced erection as a slippery slope to a _Sleeper_\-style [orgasmatron](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isrd7E5nzIQ). “People always want a quick fix,” one psychiatrist complained to TIME. “They think Viagra is magic, just like they thought the G spot worked like a garage-door opener.” Seventeen years later, sex as we know it hasn’t ended — it’s still happening in more or less the usual ways, whether or not Viagra is a part of it. But what was a godsend for men hasn’t opened any doors for women with sexual dysfunction. That’s not for lack of trying: A drug hailed as “the female Viagra” has undergone extensive clinical trials and been submitted to the FDA three times so far, most recently last month, but has never been approved, as [_Cosmopolitan_ reports](http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a36745/can-a-pill-save-female-desire/). The two drugs operate differently, as one might expect: while Viagra stimulates blood flow to the genitals, it doesn’t act on the brain. The proposed drug for women, flibanserin, instead works on neurotransmitters to increase sexual desire. The fact that there are now several drugs on the market for men’s sexual troubles and none for women constitutes sexism, some have argued, especially since an estimated 16 million women over the age of 50 suffer from some form of sexual dysfunction. A new campaign called “[Even the Score](http://eventhescore.org/)” focuses on just this disparity, calling on the FDA to make “safe & effective treatments for low \[female\] desire” a priority. In the meantime, a North Carolina doctor has [patented a spinal implant](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140321-orgasms-at-the-push-of-a-button) that can produce orgasms at the push of a button, although he’s had trouble securing the funding to perfect the device. He calls it the Orgasmatron. **_Read the 1998 cover story, here in the TIME Vault_**: [The Potency Pill](http://time.com/vault/issue/1998-05-04/page/1/) ### Sex Ed Books Through the Ages  “Those who look at our bodily dwelling can gain a very good idea of what we are... The care of our body, then, adds to our value,” advised Barbara Wood-Allen in 1897's "Self and Series: What a Young Girl Ought to Know."  "When the organs peculiar to woman are displaced or disordered ...pangs shoot through her like winged piercing arrows or darting needlepoints" wrote mail order doctor Lydia Pinkham in 1907.  Published by the Christian Education Service, of Nashville, Tennessee, during the 60s, it was written by one of the founders of SIECUS  "When the natural God-designed and God-honored sex instinct is perverted and base desire supplants love, in the choice of a companion, the home instinct is degraded, love dethroned and inharmony prevails," wrote Thomas Washington Shannon in 1913.  "It is probably best, that the life-like illustrations, some of them photographic, in books of human anatomy be kept away from boys of early adolescent age" counseled Maurice Alpheus Bigelow in 1916.  "... the woman so under the influence of liquor is, for the time being, little more than a "cave woman," or barbarian, with all the lax sex morality of the latter," wrote R.B. Armitage in 1917  This 1928 volume was directed to the "young man whose aim is to be sturdy, strong and successful."  "Dr. Norman Carr," the pamphlet informed readers in 1934, "is probably the most widely read author on this subject in the entire world."  First issued in 1949, this booklet warned: "Don’t forget that any woman who lets you use her, or who consents easily, is not safe."  From 1941, "An intellectual and frank discussion of subjects of Social Hygiene, Physiology, the Science of Sex, Moral Living, Character Building, Motherhood and PreNatal Care."  This 1941 manual includes a diagram entitled "Facts you Should Know for Defloration on Bridal Night."  This 1943 book kept in simple with little line drawings accompanying text like: "Here is the way you looked when you were ready to be born..."  The author of this 1944 guide, Belle Mooney, was touted as "a well-known physician pioneer and lecturer on hygienic and sociological subjects."  "Sooner or later your children are going to learn about sex. They ought to. They must," wrote Fathers Rumble and Carty in this 1950 textbook for Catholics.  Written in 1950 by pioneering sexologist David Cauldwell, who's credited with inventing the term transexual.  In cheerful 1950 parlance it reads: "Lucky boys and girls whose parents, teachers and leaders provide this book for them! It would be a good idea for the old folks to read it too."  "The smart writer... who says flatfootedly or insinuates cleverly that sex experience before marriage is necessary for happiness in marriage is a plain liar and an elaborate traitor to young people," cautioned Daniel Lord in 1951.  "Here is a complete analysis of young people's sexual problems and mores—from kindergarten to college —a comprehensive case-history study of the new rebellion," promised this 1962 paperback.  "Before boys are ready to get married and start a family, they must at least be able to earn a living," claimed this otherwise very hip Lutheran church publication in 1967.  "At the most basic level, a concern with sex education must stem from the recognition that human socio-sexual development is a learning process," said this scholarly 1974 journal.  This 1974 pamphlet was part of a collection of self help books from Ms. Landers including: “Teen-age Sex. And 10 Ways to Cool It!” and “Love or Sex. And How to Tell the Difference.”  From 1983: "Ugly women have boyfriends, mean women have boyfriends, hopelessly insecure women have boyfriends, stupid women have boyfriends, women covered with hideous warts have boyfriends."  This 1993 book claims that "classroom sex education is always wrong and always harmful; that it destroys modesty; awakens the passions; promotes sexual activity and fosters acceptance of sexual sins."  "Sex is many different things, and people have many different feelings and opinions about it," says this 1994 classic, in admirable understatement. Read more: Why Schools Can't Teach Sex Ed ## Transcript Where I grew up in Germany, I believed that it's the stork who brings babies to this world. Mother, is it wrong to feel [ MUSIC ] Warm and affectionate when you, when you're with a boy you really like? No dear, it is not wrong. My mom had no problem talking about it. She just said, wait 'til you get married. Maybe, like, when I was in first grade. Around fifth grade. I was about seventh grade. I do remember my mother and grandmother wanted to tell me about the facts of life. I was playing hide and go seek with my friends. Someone got rid of all their, their whole stash of pornos. Like, [ LAUGH ] [ UNKNOWN ]. I pick it up and I'm just like, this is the greatest thing I ever seen. I didn't know that I would talk about sex for my entire professional life. And now I'm 86, and I'm still talking about relationships and sex . >> I remember accidentally coming across what sex was really like on the Playboy channel when we finally got cable TV [ LAUGH ] [ MUSIC ] Sexuality education has to start at a very early age. Your belly button, it's too small. Mary, the baby doesn't come out of your navel. Let me tell you how it is. The first time I had a talk talk was in seventh grade health class. My father was so old- fashioned that. It was just I got sort of Andy back before. He would be like go talk to your brother, and he'd go, go talk to Mom. Asians don't really get that talk. It's just the, the conversations aren't there. You know, like the story of the birds and the bees I don't know that story. I don't know, I still don't know what that is. [ LAUGH ] They told me you could get pregnant by eating watermelon seeds and drinking water and eating dirt. Which I did [ LAUGH ] throwing up, I was throwing up mud when my mom got home. When the sperm and the egg get together they make a tiny person. So tiny that not even the mother knows it's there for the first few weeks. When I was a child I just thought, oh it's bad. It's bad unless you get married. And now that I'm adult I understand there's nothing wrong with that. Good sexuality education. That starts when a child is growing up is going to be beneficial for that child for the rest of his or her life. Coming from a Pentecostal Christian family, I was definitely. Not only challenging to be trying to find myself, around my sexuality and my gender identity. But I just remember always feeling this conflict of being very curious about it but then feeling very very dirty and just wrong at the same time. mom, you know, taught us a lot about self esteem and self love and it comes here first inside. Not to run off and find it in someone else. I think that when you, when you make something so taboo to somebody, you make them even more curious about it. I've realized that this really, ultimately, is about companionship and love and togetherness. I think if they say, okay, it's okay for us to talk about sex, I think they'll think, oh, more people are gonna have it. It's okay to be a sexual being. I don't think we talk enough about trust and sex. We talk a lot about love and sex and of course we want to say oh I love you, I love you and that's all that matters. But no, we also have to trust one another. And if you don't trust somebody then don't make yourself that vulnerable, which we do. In sex we're very vulnerable to one another. 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