Erectile function and dysfunction: old and new rites

Traditionally the acquisition and the consolidation of the male identity are the result of a series of complex processes. The biological stages of this conquest coincide with puberty, sexuality, reproduction and aging. All these biological moments are characterized by a constant uncertainty regarding “normality”. It is likely that in order to avoid such precariousness, historically socially based rites have developed to mark the acquisition of maturity. Limiting the theme to erectile dysfunction or, more generally, to sexual difficulty, we examine some considerations on how the arrival of the new pro-erectile molecules can have modified old rites and perhaps favoured the birth of others. From a general point of view it seems legitimate to underline how the arrangement, due to the particularly social tradition of these rites, as the anthropological literature has taught us, is becoming less in favour of a growing interiorization, strictly personal and as such difficult to share.