Randy old men: How Viagra is ruining marriages

Or as Judith Regan, the former editor-publisher and purveyor of the tastes of millions of American women, puts it: “I think there’s a lot of women who are married to older men who now have to perform and they find it annoying. They didn’t get married to have sex with these geezers. They married them for money, houses, and companionship. Sex with them is an irritation.” (As Regan sees it, women are “almost” as horny as men, though somewhat more selective about sex.)

Adds Abraham Morgentaler, MD, an associate clinical professor at Harvard Medical School and the author of “The Viagra Myth: The Surprising Impact on Love and Relationships”: “The pills and treatments have allowed men to regain their sexual abilities and that allows men to be in a different social area and have options they didn’t have before.”

He says that many older men pre-Viagra didn’t stray from their wives when they were unhappy because they lacked self-confidence. If they couldn’t “perform” they thought they were undesirable. “When men feel unable to perform sexually, they are more willing to stay in an unsatisfying relationship, they feel like they don’t have the goods,” he says.