Am I the only man left who isn't taking Viagra or Cialis or Levitra? Doesn't it seem as though every other TV ad is for one of these drugs? And the e-mails! Just think what a jobless recovery this would have been had it not been for these drugs and the home-based businesses that have grown up around them. What is going on?

How many explanations can there be for the overwhelming number of ads for these medications?

Maybe drug companies developed these drugs and are running so many ads as a sort of public service, out of some sense of moral duty to help those who suffer from "erectile dysfunction"? I can almost see the corporate planning session. Someone puts up a slide showing the overall size of the market — looks small. The next slide outlines a research campaign and estimated cost to develop and market a treatment for the condition — looks time-consuming and expensive. The third slide is a passionate plea to spend the money, to do whatever it takes, to help those who can't make anything happen when they should. The proposal is accepted on the spot.

Right! Let's move on to explanations that have at least some plausibility. Perhaps the number of men suffering from "erectile dysfunction" is very large and the market for treating the condition is sizeable, well worth spending massive R&D and advertising dollars to pursue? Don't you think anyone having a problem in this area, metaphorically throwing a football through a swinging tire, would already know about various treatments for it and would not need to see incessant advertisements? Besides, if this explanation were correct, shouldn't the Centers for Disease Control be looking into the large and increasing number of cases? What a useless organization if an epidemic of such proportions, affecting such a vital area of the body, can develop and spawn an entirely new drug category and it isn't even on the case!

A still more logical explanation is that the drug companies figure that if they advertise enough, men will begin to wonder what a "dysfunction" really is and start taking one of these medications just in case. "You can't be too rich or too thin." I'll bet there is an "erectile dysfunction" equivalent. When one of the ads says that a person should be concerned and consult a doctor if an erection lasts longer than four hours, there is probably a market segment that hears this as "be careful, this dietary supplement may cause you to shed 25 pounds more than you planned."

Once a person is persuaded that there might be some sort of "dysfunction," the sky is the limit in trying to correct it. It's probably too soon for the right terminology to have developed, but I'm sure we will eventually end up having Viagra/Cialis/Levitra anorexics and bulimics. If people will starve themselves almost to death and spend billions on weight-loss treatments, just think how much they might spend on enhancing their ability to throw footballs and take hot baths, if you get my meaning!

I suspect something like this was on the fourth slide presented in the corporate planning meeting mentioned above. I'm betting, however, that the real explanation is a combination of this one and a real market-building kicker — there is a recreational use for these medications. They are a "turbocharger." Sure, your old Camry runs fine, functions perfectly, never lets you or your passengers down, but a real performance car has a turbocharger to boost the output from the engine. An older man, having divorced his older wife, needs some help to keep up with his new, younger wife or girlfriend. Another man, whose reputation depends on the performance of his vehicle on the bar circuit, consults his doctor about the ads he has seen. "Do I have enough of a dysfunction, Doc, for you to prescribe a turbocharger for me?" Just wondering out loud, but does the Food and Drug Administration classify these as acceptable or "off label" uses for the medication? I'm sure you have already guessed that this line of thinking was on the fifth and final slide in the presentation — with a large arrow, labeled "profits," pointing straight up!

"Erectile dysfunction." "Dysfunction." "Dysfunction? "Dysssssfunction." Hmm. Kind of a relative sort of word, don't you think? It doesn't mean broken. It just means "doesn't work as well as it might." Did the medical establishment or marketers come up with this? I wonder how much better "functioning" could be? Hmmm.

— Jef Kurfess lives in Westlake Village.