HARD PROBLEMS

Art by Addison Pavone

A woman in red stares seductively at the camera in front of her. In her hands, she holds a small jet black package.

“It’s for the men who care, for the men who perform, and the men who succeed.”

BlueChew, along with companies like Hims and Ro, provide medication for men seeking sexual enhancement, which has increased in popularity and sales with the rise in social media advertising. With eased restrictions on telehealth in previous years, startups like BlueChew have increasingly filled the digital ad space, often targeting younger men. Their ads on TikTok tend to feature paid influencers, typically models, touting its ability to give their male partner a longer lasting erection, increased “performance” and the ability to “save other men” who need to satisfy their partner.

In several of these ads, the men who acquire the BlueChew are clawed at like an Adonis by their female counterparts and dragged into a bedroom in order to use it. In other television and digital campaigns for BlueChew, taglines such as “Become a Legend” and “The Perfect Package for Your Package” underscore the brand’s raunchy, hyper-masculine tone. This messaging is clearly designed to resonate with younger men by linking sexual performance to status, confidence and desirability, despite the fact that the product is not FDA-approved.

With the continued prevalence of apps like TikTok and Instagram over the past few years, many advertisers have flocked to these apps to promote their products. As these platforms accrue billions of monthly users, it’s only natural that the flow of advertising through short form videos has become an integrated part of the doomscrolling experience.

BlueChew’s most popular product is a chewable tablet filled with Sildenafil, the same active ingredient found in Viagra, a drug used for giving the user a stronger and more aggressive erection. In previous years, boner pills were only available through a prescription after a diagnosis of erectile dysfunction (ED). However, with Pfizer losing their patent to the Viagra product in 2017 and loosened restrictions on telemedicine around the COVID-19 pandemic, it has never been easier for men to purchase these products.

By emphasizing swagger and exaggerated effects while offering little to no clarity on who should actually be taking the medication—men diagnosed with ED—BlueChew’s advertising raises serious questions about its morality and potentially predatory nature, especially since experts from places like GoodRx and the Cleveland Clinic explicitly caution that taking ED drugs without a diagnosis is unhealthy.

Steven Lundberg, an advertising professor at Syracuse University with over 25 years of experience, said the phrasing of these ads is strategic.

“It’s all in the language they’re using,” Lundberg said. “It’s so vague. So to me, that was like, there’s something shady going on here.”

Lundberg also commented on how the nature of the ads implicitly targets younger men to purchase the product.

“The classic advertising trope is that if you buy this product, it’ll help you ‘get the girl’ or ‘be more successful.’ So I imagine for young men in particular that desire to be as successful or powerful is there.”

Through their use of targeted language and suggestive symbolism, and given that the product is not intended for men who can already achieve erections naturally, BlueChew’s marketing rhetoric comes across as both disingenuous and potentially harmful.

For younger men who are navigating the sexual world for the first time, this advertising can seem incredibly tantalizing. Everyone wants to satisfy their partner, and if a “magical pill” tells you it can help, you might feel inclined to take it.

For young men who may already feel insecure about their sex lives, these ads can make them feel like they need a product to be effective, sexy and make their partner feel good. However, what most young men should do instead of chewing up a gummy is communicate with their sexual partners and talk about what feels right for both people. Whether you’re chewing a gummy or taking a pill, no amount of medication will give you the fictitious gusto that will get your partner screaming for more.

Hopefully the trend of products like BlueChew gets chewed up and spat out sooner rather than later.