WOMEN WILL BE WANTING ORGASMS NEXT

I ONCE MET a woman who confided, over dinner, that she had not had an
orgasm until she was nearly 40. There was nothing unusual about her
story, just a note of regret in her voice that she had had to wait so
long. She had never consulted a doctor about it, assuming that her GP
would not regard it as a medical problem or that she had had bad luck
with men, a circumstance which clearly fell outside his remit. Not any
longer: on Friday, the demand for orgasms on the NHS reached a
deafening crescendo, with doctors suddenly discovering that a full sex
life is vital to health.

"Cruel and unethical" was the reaction of the British Medical
Association to a decision by the Health Secretary, Frank Dobson, to
allow GPs to prescribe the anti-impotence drug Viagra only to men
suffering from specific medical conditions. The BMA is advising
doctors to go on prescribing the drug on the NHS to all impotent men
who seek their help, in defiance of the guidelines, during the six-
week consultation period before the restrictions come into force.
"When I hear people talk against prescribing Viagra, I think they are
probably not having to sit in a surgery and explain to a patient who
is in desperate need," said Dr Ian Bogle, chairman of the BMA.

Desperate need? I do not much like the idea of drug rationing. I am
sorry for men who, for whatever reason, have erectile problems. But
if anyone seriously doubts that we continue to live in a phallocentric
culture, let me cite in evidence Friday's newspapers, where the
Viagra-rationing story was on the front pages of the Daily Telegraph,
the Guardian, the Daily Mail and the Express. In the Sun, an anonymous
journalist - I do hope it was not my new friend, Mr Yelland -
identified himself as a Viagra user and denounced the decision to
limit prescriptions as "arrogant, cruel and unfair".

It is hard to imagine anyone making a comparable fuss if someone
invented a female orgasm pill and the NHS declined to make it freely
available to every adult woman in this country who would like to
improve her sex life, (Multiple orgasms, doctor? Yes please.) When
the idea of such a drug was mooted a couple of years ago, there was a
brief flurry of interest in the media, followed by total silence.
Friends of mine have been speculating, for some months, about whether
Viagra works for women - there seems to be no logical reason why it
should not stimulate the clitoris as well as the penis - but would any
GP prescribe it to a female patient who wanted a livelier time in
bed? I don't think we need waste much time on that little conundrum.

There is an obvious parallel here with recreational drugs such as
cannabis. I am in favour of the legalisation of soft drugs but I
have never heard anyone argue that they should be available on the
NHS, except to sufferers from illnesses such as multiple sclerosis.
This, as it happens, is one of the conditions for which Viagra will
continue to be available on prescription, along with diabetes and
spinal cord injuries. My only criticism of Mr Dobson is that he has
not deregulated Viagra altogether, allowing it to be sold in handy
little packs from dispensers in men's lavatories, like the ones which
currently disgorge condoms. Or women's lavatories, come to that. Now
that orgasms have been established as an inalienable human right, to
be prescribed by rebel GPs at taxpayers' expense, we can hardly
expect disappointed women just to lie back and think of England.

IN FAIRY TALES, children run away and hide in forests, where they
narrowly escape being eaten by wolves and other malign fates. Along
with the conviction that they are adopted - that their "real" parents
live somewhere else - running away must be one of the most popular
fantasies among pre-pubescent children, especially when something goes
even slightly wrong at home or at school. Their capacity to
distinguish between fantasy and reality is less fully developed than
it is in adults, or so one tends to assume.

And then last week, as if intent on disproving this theory, the Spice
Girls decided to intervene in the hunt for two missing schoolgirls,
Lisa Hoodless and Charlene Lunnon. "Please call home," band members
told the Daily Star, while the aptly-named Baby Spice, Emma Bunton,
added: "We're all so worried about your safety." This gruesome
publicity stunt assumed that the missing 10-year-olds, who turned up
safely on Friday morning, were doing normal things such as buying
tabloid newspapers and watching TV - perhaps from the hotel room they
had booked into without arousing anyone's suspicions.

Of course the police had to appeal for help in finding the children,
but the way the media handled the story, conducting emotional
interviews with people quite peripheral to the incident and assuming
the worst possible outcome when few of the facts were known, says more
about current perceptions of danger than the world as it really is.