Women, Viagra and Embarrassing Moments

¡Hola! Everybody…
This morning there’s an item on women and Viagra. The study, a small study, found a favorable correlation between Viagra and women on antidepressants.

Now, let’s deconstruct this for one moment. First, depression has been over medicated in my opinion. We do not know enough about the chemistry of the brain. The long-term effects of antidepressants are not known. And please, don’t mistake what I’m saying: if you’re taking antidepressants, don’t flush your ‘script down the toilet.

What I am saying is that because HMOs refuse to pay for adequate psychotherapy visits, there’s an over reliance on medication as a way to treat depression. Taking a pill alone is not an effective way to treat depression. This is not an opinion, it’s a fact supported by rigorous research. At best, antidepressants should be used as a short-term solution to help individuals severely debilitated by depression. Ideally, medication should be integrated with therapy. As it is, medical general practitioners, people who have very little expertise in psychology, write most scripts for antidepressants.

Because drug companies stand to make tons of money and because HMOs refuse to pay for adequate therapy sessions, depression has become over-medicated. If you don’t believe me, take note that currently there are over 6 million women suffering from depression. These categories of drugs have been prescribed to the extent that traces of anti-depressants are showing up in the water.

Let’s recap briefly:

1) We have a mood disorder (depression) that has been over-medicated.

2) The long-term effects of these drugs are for the most part unknown. One of the known side effects includes sexual dysfunction.

3) Millions of women are being given antidepressants.

Still with me?

Today, in the news there’s a widely reported “finding” of a very small study, funded by – you guessed it – a pharmaceutical company, showing that taking Viagra helps women on antidepressants. So, here's the issue: we now have a drug to counter another drug that probably shouldn’t even be prescribed in the first place.

::blank stare::

This is the “free market” at work people. The very same players who own the media monopoly are now selling you drugs from the pharmaceutical monopoly. In addition, they report it as “scientific.”

You should be worried.

* * *

-=[ Embarrassing Moments ]=-
“The one thing you can do is to do nothing. Wait…You will find that you survive humiliation and that’s an experience of incalculable value. -- Thomas Stearns Eliot

I don’t know why I’m posting this. Yesterday, while dining with some friends, the subject of embarrassing moments came up.

::sigh::

My life – I couldn’t write this shit… two moments come up for me. One is a little tragic; the other is somewhat funny (if you weren’t me).

I grew up in some rough neighborhoods with some great characters. One friend, who had just gotten out of prison, was staying with me. He didn’t have anywhere to go and he was a close friend, so I agreed he could come stay with me while he got situated.

One day, when I cam home from work, he came in with a pillowcase full of jewelry. I mean there was a pillowcase and it was literally filled with high quality jewelry. I noticed there was a piece with the Jewish “La Chaim” symbol on it. I explained its significance to my friend who couldn’t care less. He gave it to me, actually let me have my pick of a few pieces as gratitude form my generosity. I knew it was stolen goods, but my ethics weren’t all that great as a young man.

So, the next day I wore the La Chaim piece to work and the girls were all admiring it. At that time, I couldn’t tell the truth if you paid me. So when they asked where I got the piece, I said it was from my “new girlfriend.” This was a good move on my part because it made one of the girls I had my eye on jealous.

Then there was this homely girl no one liked. She asked to see the piece and when she turned the medallion over she began screaming.

I mean she began screaming – like horror picture-Friday-the-13^th-you’re-killing-me screaming. This was in an office. Everybody stopped. Everything stopped.

She took a breath and then yelled out for everyone to hear, “This is my chain! This is my jewelry!” and she began screaming again.

Not knowing what to do, I affected an annoyed tone and calmly replied, “You must be mistaken, sweetie. This chain was a gift from my girlfriend.” I looked at her as if she were a leper and asked her to let go of my chain.

She wouldn’t let go and when she turned the medallion over, she showed where her now deceased mother left her an inscription with her name on it.

There are over 8 million people in The City people. That had to be the most embarrassing moment in my life up to that point…

But there’s another, more humiliating experience.

I was dated a court reporter for several years. We were together for a while. I was in love with her ass. She had the most exquisitely shaped ass ever. She was also 5’11” tall in her bare feet. She had the longest, most beautiful legs. I stand at 5’7”. I was in love with her lower half. She was also very politically conservative. She claimed to be a virgin and would not allow vaginal intercourse. She would fellate me and eventually I convinced her that anal sex was a good resolution to our sexual haggling, but I couldn’t enter the va-jayjay (eventually I would).

Anyway, we would have these huge arguments over political and religious matters. One day, right before we broke up, she told me that I would never amount to anything. She said I was the most brilliant man she ever met (and the only reason she put up with me), but like most brilliant people, I assumed the rules didn’t apply to me.

My response was to tell her to go fuck herself and how being sexually repressed didn’t give her the right to pass judgment on me.

Fast forward to about 10 years. I am standing in a November drizzle shackled in front of the Manhattan courts. I have just gotten off the bus from Riker’s Island where I was incarcerated while fighting a criminal case. It’s the day I’m going to be sentenced. Obviously, I’m not looking forward to this day. People, “regular” people walking to work are staring at me and the group of men like me who are shackled hand and foot. Wall Street, Chinatown, and the courts, are all within walking distance of each other here, and there are tons of people walking by. It’s humiliating. And I’m thinking to myself that I hope I don’t see anyone I know. And who do I see walking down the street? Yes, my ex, the repressed wanna-be virgin of the conservative mind-set.

I try to make myself invisible. I stare at me feet and slump my shoulders. She walks right by me and I’m relieved.

She didn’t see me, I think to myself.

“Eddie?” She stops, starts walking toward me and she says again, “Eddie?”

“Eddie?!!”

I look up and we make eye contact and there’s panic in her eyes, she’s concerned. She tries to run up to me only to be stopped by a corrections guard who tells her to stand back. My fellow inmates are by now commenting on the “fine bitch” trying to talk to me and she's walking alongside me asking me questions I can’t answer. All I can do is shrug.

Later, as part of a plea bargain, I allocate to my crime. Not only am I being sentenced, I have to stand up in a court of law and verbally admit to everything I have accused of…

That was a dark day.

Love,

Eddie