Deleuze on Viagra (Or, What Can a ‘Viagra-Body’ Do?)

Abstract

In this article I employ Deleuzian theory in an exploration of men’s and women’s experiences of sexuality and sexual relations when encountering erectile difficulties and/or using sexuopharmaceuticals such as Viagra (sildenafil). I analyse the ways in which accounts of the function of Viagra-assisted erections can be seen to restore or re-establish previous sexual conventions or patterns (in Deleuzian terms, to ‘re-territorialize’ desire in ‘molar’ directions), and the ways in which Viagra use may change or challenge such patterns. Also examined are the alternative stories of those for whom Viagra hasn’t ‘worked’; these accounts demonstrate how the persistence of erectile difficulties produces positive opportunities for experimentation, creativity and transformation in the realm of the erotic.