Hard talk

Everything sounds dirty when you talk to the makers of Viagra. Even the word “poll.”

The people from Pfizer were at EDSA Shangri-La last week to share the results of an Asia-wide poll — the “Ideal Sex Survey,” conducted by Harris Interactive Asia, the first time Filipino tastes and sexual predilections have been examined by the drug company.

Over early lunch at Heat (how appropriate), we couldn’t keep the dirty, suggestive double entendres in check. Columnist Julie Yap-Daza started it off, coyly asking — after we were asked to hit the buffet before starting our discussion — “Oh? Food before sex?”

After that it was “How much of it is enough,” “How little,” “How long,” “How hard” — all the usual topics. These are serious matters to Pfizer, known for making the little blue pill that requires the most extensive scientific studies in the world to maintain its, er, huge and growing body of data.

Pfizer’s guest was Dr. Rosie King, a cheery Australian sex therapist and author of the bestseller Good Loving, Great Sex, who told us some interesting side effects of Viagra. Not only is it good for producing erections, it is also given to Everest mountain climbers to reduce the effects of altitude sickness.

“In other words,” I quipped, “as you’re coming down, you’re going up?”

(I just couldn’t resist that one.)

“Yes,” Dr. King said, pretending she hadn’t heard this line dozens of times already. And Viagra’s also apparently used to treat pulmonary hypertension in babies. Yes, Viagra is prescribed to babies. In Australia, it’s given out free to parents whose babies have the condition. So they can make more babies. (Just kidding.)

Dr. King mentioned there are certain physical conditions men should meet before using the drug. You should be “fit” enough — that is, able to walk a kilometer in 15 minutes, and go up two flights of stairs in 10 seconds.

Hard science: Dr. Rosie King explains the results of the Pfizer Ideal Sex Survey Asia as a group of Filipino journalists think up suggestive puns. Photo by JUN MENDOZA

“What if you’re too tired after that for the sex?” I asked.

See? Hard to be serious when talking about erections, isn’t it?

Viagra should not be used by people with angina conditions who take nitroglycerin tablets (the drug interaction is a no-no), but it is okay for those with heart conditions, contrary to popular belief. As long as they can walk a kilometer and climb those stairs without keeling over.

Dr. King then got down to the data, showing us the results of the Ideal Sex Survey, which covered 10 Asian countries and some 3,000 respondents. Online, some 250 Filipinos were polled (that word again), which doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but their data encompassed wide enough parameters — age, gender, socioeconomic levels, educational background — to offer a pretty good picture of Filipino sexual tastes and habits.

And guess what? It turns out that most Filipinos, male and female, said the secret to ideal sex is getting and maintaining hard erections.

Bingo! This is precisely what Pfizer is in the business of selling! A definite win-win! What are the odds?

Anyway, the questions covered a wide range of possible factors leading to “ideal” sex. Among them were penis size, orgasm intensity, duration and even frequency of sex. Yet, Asia-wide, the responses to the Pfizer survey all came down to this: it’s not the size, but the ripeness of the banana.

Why banana? Pfizer has created a scale it calls the Erectile Hardness Score (EHS). (I was tempted to ask if there was a video game or iPad app one could download to improve one’s score. I didn’t, though.)

The erectile scores range from EHS1 (soft) to EHS4 (very, very hard).

Each country, it turns out, has a different visual chart for this scale. The charts are very funny. Israel’s shows a firm, upright flower for EHS4, and a sad, wilted one for EHS1. The best one, though, is Taiwan, which shows a picture of a cucumber (as in “hard as a…”) for EHS4. Then there’s a banana for EHS3, and a peeled banana for EHS2.

And what’s the visual for EHS1?

Tofu.

That cracked me up.

These scores are important, because Pfizer’s survey shows that EHS4 erections (“completely hard and fully rigid”) lead to better sex for both partners, increasing self-confidence and intimacy. On the tofu side of things (“penis larger but not hard”), well, it may be healthy, but it sure ain’t satisfying.

The survey also uncovered some interesting things about Filipinos. Apparently a higher percentage of Pinoy men value more than one erection per sexual session (or, as Ms. Yap-Daza put it, “Buy one, take one”). This was at variance with the other nine Asian countries polled in the survey, so Pinoys are apparently more “into” sex than their regional neighbors. Or at least they’re more into seconds.

The survey also reported that Filipino men prefer more sexual encounters than the Asian average. (They reportedly prefer 14.6 sex acts per month, while Filipinas prefer 7.7 sex acts per month. Guess somebody’s not in the mood…)

Other findings of the Pfizer survey show that both men and women, Asia-wide, value “Having an emotional connection with your partner” and “Good communication” highly, along with “Physical foreplay” and cucumber-like erections. So it’s not all just “Wham, bam, thank you, Ma’am” after all.

Dr. King also revealed the reason that men generally think about sex more often than women: “Throughout their lives, men produce 10 times as much testosterone than women, and testosterone is the ‘lust’ chemical.” (Guys, don’t even think about using this as an excuse for your extracurricular activities.)

Speaking of extracurricular activities, someone asked our guest doctor about sex addiction, and naturally Tiger Woods’ name came up. Why did he have to go to rehab, someone asked? “I’ll tell you why Tiger Woods went into sex rehab — to escape the media! And where do Americans go to escape the media, when things get too hot? Into rehab!” For Woods and other sex addicts, “It’s not about ‘he’s so horny.’ What happens is, whenever sex addicts feel uncomfortable with a feeling — whether they’re depressed, or burnt out, or anxious — instead of dealing with the feeling like a normal man, they replace it with lust. So they go out and have sex with a woman.” Dr. King calls it a “coping mechanism.” (And here I thought golf was the coping mechanism.)

She also mentioned why guys tend to fall asleep right after sex while women stare at the ceiling and count the tiles: “After orgasm, the body releases endorphins, which are natural opiates. So for men, within 30 seconds of orgasm, they get an irresistible burst of sleepiness. Women get the same urge, but not for three to five minutes after intercourse (or 20 minutes after an orgasm).” She adds that men can “take advantage of this by engaging in some sleepy afterplay — kissing, cuddling, stroking, tender words after intercourse is finished, even if he’s only semi-conscious ­— so he will trigger her endorphin release earlier, and they can both fall asleep together. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

It did, and we were reaching the end of Dr. King’s interesting presentation. So I had to ask: “Since the respondents are giving subjective answers for this survey, how, um… hard is the data here? Is it, say, hard as a cucumber?”

To her credit, Dr. King gave me a straight answer: “In the end, sexual satisfaction is always subjective. Someone in Vietnam once asked me, ‘How do you define sexual satisfaction?’ An interesting question. I have an answer: your sex life is satisfying when it meets your expectations. If you think that, every sexual encounter, you have to be hanging from chandeliers and swinging like monkeys, changing positions 85 times, and sex is like an Olympic sport, then you’re probably not going to be satisfied.”

Then again, it definitely sounds better than the tofu.