A FEW months ago a man walked into a pharmacy in Madrid, pulled out two toy guns and told the attendants to hand over all the Viagra in stock. Two hours later, in what was perhaps a show of gratitude, he returned with two bouquets of roses, before being arrested.
Such are the extremes to which men in a country usually associated with bullfighting and football will go to obtain the male impotency drug nicknamed sexo azul, or blue sex. It costs £53 for a box of eight blue diamond-shaped tablets and has become a
s popular with teenage clubbers as it is with men in their 70s.
"There has been a Viagra explosion in Spain," says Dr Carlos San Martín, who counsels couples and has tried Viagra himself. "Some people are taking it for physiological reasons, but Viagra is also becoming a social phenomenon, a recreational drug that men of all ages are using because they want to be supermen."
Women are demanding that their boyfriends get prescriptions. Young partygoers are buying tablets from dealers in discos for as much as £41 a pill, cutting them into pieces, and distributing them among their friends, even though doing so diminishes the drug's effectiveness.
Doctors say some men are even faking symptoms to try to get the tablets, the main ingredient of which, sildenafil citrate, is effective for up to four hours.
Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, says Spain has moved into the vanguard of a European Viagra trend in part because economic prosperity has transformed the country from a relaxed Mediterranean culture, where the siesta was sacrosanct, into an Anglo-Saxon-style, workaholic nation. This new stress, said Belén Alguacil Arconada, a Pfizer spokeswoman, is wreaking havoc with the Spanish male's libido.
"We used to have a siesta, to sleep all afternoon, to eat well," she said. "But now we have become a fast-food nation where everyone is stressed out, and this is not good for male sexual performance."
Pfizer says it sold nearly one million boxes of Viagra in Spain last year, the equivalent of one box for every 17 men aged 18 and older. Globally, Pfizer earned $1.66bn (£823m) from Viagra sales in 2006.
The quest for Viagra was apparent at a packed disco in Chueca, a bohemian district of Madrid, where a group of young men said they took Viagra because it increased sexual confidence. Santiago, a 32-year-old travel agent, called the drug a "sexual security blanket".
Medical experts are alarmed by Viagra's transformation into a party drug, which young men are combining with illegal designer drugs such as Ecstasy to make a cocktail that young clubbers call sextasy.
The increasing sexual assertiveness of Spanish women has also contributed to the Viagra trend. Bárbara Alfonso, who last year opened Spain's first escort service for women in Barcelona, says Spanish men are struggling to adapt to sexual liberation among women.
She notes, however, that while many men think they need to take Viagra to satisfy women, what women really crave is companionship and good conversation.
"The new generation of women in Spain are less influenced by religion and tradition and are willing to do what it takes to have good sex, whether that means going to an escort service or giving their boyfriends Viagra," she said.
Not everyone welcomes the country's Viagra obsession. Nacho Vidal, Spain's most famous porn star, complains that the widespread use of Viagra is destroying rather than strengthening Spanish male sexuality.
"Everyone is taking Viagra," he said. "It is the new drug, and this is undermining Spanish men's credibility. Before, you used to have to perform, but now all you need is a pill."
