Looking back over the last fifty years is like seeing the advance from a repressed stone age into a liberated technological age. The difference in attitudes could not be more easily seen than through the advertisements shown on television. Back in the 1950s, prim housewives stayed home and did the washing with a miracle whitener. Today, even though the US is currently going through a recession more devastating than anything seen for the last seventy years, the pharmaceutical industry is able to find the money for advertising drugs to cure erectile dysfunction. Although it might be better to spend the same money on finding cures for some of the big killers like cancer and heart disease, men need the reassurance that there are pills to given them hard erections when they need them the most. However, there may be a puritanical backlash on the way. Even though prime time television seems to be peddling an apparently endless round of reality shows dealing with every conceivable kind of dating scenario and shows with sex jokes to the fore, there are moves to limit the ads offering real people help to have sex.
The Democrats are on the job, proposing a bill that would prevent broadcasters in radio and television from carrying erectile dysfunction ads before 10 pm. There seem to be sacks of mail coming into the offices of politicians complaining that four-year olds and above are now asking their parents to explain what the ads mean. It’s hard to say who might be the more embarrassed by such questions when there are an equal number of ads targeting women with “female satisfaction” products. The only difference between the ads is that those targeting women are slightly more vague and rely slightly more on humor. Yet neither leaves much to the imagination. All of which poses the question of what it is appropriate to show on television and at what time of the day. The ads started a few years ago on programs aimed at adult viewers but, in a relatively short period of time, they have been spreading through the day.
As the law currently stands, the FCC can fine any broadcaster for program content deemed to be indecent or obscene — as those who observed the famous Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction can testify. In the same vein, the FCC has banned tobacco advertising as a danger to public health, so ads are accepted as coming under its control. The point of the bill is therefore to encourage discussion of the ads promoting cialis and the other erectile dysfunction treatments. It is unlikely the bill will become law. There are too many other pressing problems for a bill on morality to survive. In any event, there are no real votes likely from Congress unless more explicit nudity is involved. The issue also lacks a public health dimension. But the fact it has been raised may prompt advertizers to adopt a slightly more careful selection of the advertizing slots to buy. Self-regulation is never a bad way of solving a problem and saving parents from embarrassing explanations. For all this, Cialis will continue selling without a marketing blitz.
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