In 1998, when Viagra was approved by the FDA, it suddenly opened up new sexual possibilities

for people who had previously none.

The drug also sparked a very earnest and very pupsic conversation about erectile dysfunction,

one that quickly veered toward late-night punchlines.

And yet, despite the millions of prescriptions written during its nearly 25 years of existence,

for some Viagra did not prove to be the quick fix they hoped for.

Death Sex and Money, a podcast produced by WNYC, O-T-M's producing station, aired a compelling

three-part series about Viagra earlier this year, and we'll be sharing them with you this

month.

Here's the host of the show, Anna Sal.

How old were you when you realized that getting erections was not something that was

going to be automatic for you?

It all kind of started early 20s, so I would have been probably about 22, 23 struggling

with that problem.

This is Brandon.

He's 27, lives in Toronto.

And it was around the time that he came out as gay, that he realized he had trouble getting

and maintaining erections.

I found myself very much avoiding sex, whether it would be leaving a date early so that wasn't

a possibility or making sure that we were going out somewhere, so that we weren't coming

back with a daunting expectation of, oh, are we going to go into the bedroom and what

is that going to look like?

...