My sex supplement problem

It started with Viagra in my 20s, but sex became a performance. Could I ever find intimacy without a pharmacy?

Published September 1, 2014 11:00PM (EDT)

   (<a href='http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-1797692p1.html'>Piotr Kowalski</a> via <a href='http://www.shutterstock.com/'>Shutterstock</a>)
(Piotr Kowalski via Shutterstock)

“There’s something serious you need to know,” I said, pulling my pretty, ambitious 25-year-old girlfriend, Rachel, aside as we walked home from work. I was 33, trying to play the role of confident older man, but I was a wreck. I lit a cigarette. “Sometimes I take supplements — to help myself perform.”

“You mean like Viagra?” she asked. She looked totally calm, even relieved.

“Lately it’s just over-the-counter things, stuff you can buy at the Vitamin Shoppe: ginseng, L-arginine, maca root,” I confessed. “But the side effects keep getting worse. I get a headache every time, no matter how much I ...

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By Rob Williams

Rob Williams is a writer and editor who lives above a meat market in New York City. Read more of his stories at itmustbebobby.com.

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