By Mark Antony Rossi

I am reminded of an old Italian saying ” you can’t make stale bread fresh again. ” The thought behind this maxim might apply to many areas of our lives but the libido is clearly not one of them.

The introduction of erection pills and implant devices have transformed the lives of men suffering from sexual dysfunction due to advanced age, disease or the damage of prostate surgery. Yet such beneficial enhancements, regardless how noble, are not without controversy or contradiction.

Shortly after these miraculous medical breakthroughs a number of reports surfaced of secret rendezvous at retirement homes, stories of elderly men married over 50 years leaving their wives for younger women and various extramarital affairs. Before the pharmaceutical intervention polite society presupposed sexuality was strictly a role for the young. Intercourse for the mature person was deemed inappropriate and “dirty.”

Once reality began to seep into the middle class consciousness the lawsuits and the accusations flew higher than an endangered eagle scoping the landscape for its next prey. But most failed to find monetary compensation simply because fault was in the emotion; not in the medicine. It is counterproductive on a larger scale to rant about personal responsibility on Monday and blame the world for your problems on Tuesday.

I would not argue against Big Science needing careful oversight and all its potential innovations reviewed for ethical impact. But the public must take care to actively prevent personal shortcomings from being used as weapons to demonize useful medical advancements. Like rushing waves of water —technology can exploit invisible cracks in our lives. Only patience and wise stewardship will navigate the good and bad traffic of scientific progress.

If your spouse leaves you there’s a very good chance it has nothing to do with a chemical tablet invented in a laboratory 10,000 miles away. Science has enough of its own legitimate issues without incorporating seductive soap opera scripts in the mix. I say Dementia is the great tragedy of our modern age and Divorce a sad byproduct of the same.

About the Author: Mark Antony Rossi is a poet, playwright and author of the bioethics volume “Dark Tech” now available from Amazon. His most recent plays have been produced in Liverpool and New York. http://markantonyrossi.jigsy.com