Why marine life is indebted to Viagra
Published on Sunday, June 7th 1998 on The San Juan StarFew things are more important to a man’s ego than his ability to perpetuate his species. This, of course, presupposes some rather dependable physiology. To a man, his physiology is his Department of Natural Resources. It can also serve as a number of other agencies as well, for example, as a complement to his Aqueduct and Sewer Authority. If the guy is very self assured, his physiology can serve as his Power Utility. If he is somewhat loose and debonair, it can also serve as his Department of Parks and Recreation. Two major considerations give his physiology value added in his own esteem: (1) its architecture, and (2) its capability for responding reliably and spontaneously. But, alas, this is not a perfect world. Man has been known to... fail.
In a purely macho culture such as ours, folklore and folk medicine have intervened with protocols to assure and enhance male functionality. When I was young, it was thought that consuming oysters was a sure fire way of guaranteeing dependability. But our common local oyster is not so big a deal. It is called Crassostrea rhizophorae, the rhizophorae because it is found in the roots of Rhizophora, the Red Mangrove. When word got out that this bivalve had such an effect on the male resource, visitors from San Juan would descend upon Parguera and Boquerón in droves just to consume ostras ,while their spouses, unsuspecting of the horrible fate worse than death awaiting them, were innocently shopping in the nearby Mall.
Needy men would gobble up dozens of oysters, bought from fishermen who had mounds of them on a rustic table under the hot sun. Oyster fishermen would offer their produce along town streets, on the sidewalk, or along the roads. The oysters were swallowed whole and live. If you knew enough about their anatomy, you could see their hearts still beating when you opened the shell. A lemon squeeze was a must, and for the faint-hearted, a shot of rum would dissipate the gruesome vision of a live piece of nondescript mollusk on a dirty shell. That was the price to be paid for the hope of productive tryst.
The demand for Crassostrea rhizophorae got so bad along southwestern Puerto Rico that the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USF&WS) declared the Mangrove Oyster an endangered species on the verge of extinction. It also declared every motel in Puerto Rico a critical habitat for the oyster. It took a cholera scare to get the pressure off the Mangrove Oyster and restore its natural populations. Then it was the Queen Conch, Strombus gigas, who became the presumed providers of pressure. On Icacos, Caja de Muertos, and other offshore islands one can still see mounds of perforated conch shells which gave their lives to enliven H. machus.
The availability of Crassostrea virginica from the Carolinas and the Gulf of Mexico took some of the pressure –no pun– off the conch. These, being from the United States, were of course larger and handsomer. But those who thought that a bigger oyster would provide a bigger resource or a bigger tryst were dreadfully disappointed. It is not all gold that glitters. Size of the oyster and size of your... wish was not quite a direct relationship.
Another marine organism which had been ascribed the faculty of providing sturdy, er... moments was the Hawksbill Turtle Eretmochelys imbricata. In the case of the Hawksbill, human males did not have to swallow it whole. In fact, its power for prowess was not even in its flesh. Worse yet, not every Hawksbill would make you potent, only the males. A Hawksbill’s head bobbing in the waves gives you no clue as to its gender. It is not easy to determine whether it is male or female unless you look very, very close. They’re sort of shy about advertising. Because of this, many Hawksbills were slaughtered for potency hopes to no avail. Because lo and behold, the magic wand for potency was in the Hawksbill’s penis, and the females didn’t carry any. The organ from this male marine reptile would sell for a lot more than the whole animal’s worth in flesh. If you think the USF&WS declared the Hawksbill an endangered species because they were being butchered for turtle steak, think again.
Then came the worst extinction threat of them all. Homo machus became an endangered species. The threat of extinction of H. machus came not from gringo capitalists wielding multinational companies that would reap and exploit the environment and then leave with full pockets; nor from NASA’s Coquí II Tortuguero Project wielding toxic rockets; nor from developers chopping down virgin mangroves to build virginless hotels. No. The threat to Homo machus came from the evolution of a competitor: the Homo feminus, which had originally evolved as a complement to H. machus. They used to get together, cavort, reproduce into more of one or the other, and things were just right so long as H. machus called the shots.
But as it turned out, H. feminus had been gaining on H. machus at an evolutionarily frightening speed. H. feminus quickly evolved into a subspecies, H. feminus assertivus, which H. machus was not yet equipped to cope with. H. f. assertivus began to occupy professions, take jobs, become executives, and eventually invent a courting pattern stemming from their own initiative pretty much like the courting pattern that had stemmed from H. machus for centuries. But whenever H. f. assertivus took the lead and confronted H. machus in her own terms, H. machus couldn’t muster enough stem to go on. H. machus was doomed to limp extinction.
Then came Viagra. And, Wow! The Pfizer pill suddenly became the Species Recovery Plan for H. machus, who can now be just as assertive as H. f. assertivus. For hours on end. In fact, for eight straight –no pun– hours, if it gets out of hand. Motels are back to a booming business.
And so, sadly, are divorce attorneys. Women in droves have just filed for divorce in the courts on grounds that their husbands have failed to support them. Not that they couldn’t pay the rent, or the bills, or the groceries. They just couldn’t afford the Viagra pills.
Regardless, marine organisms have a debt of gratitude with Viagra.