Viagra falls.

I'M NO MARGARET MEAD (ALTHOUGH ONE HALLOWEEN I CUT IN some blunt bangs, slipped on a sarong and some sensible shoes, and carried a big walking stick), but I would have to say that straight people are in the middle of a bigger end-of-the-century sex panic than gay people could ever dream of having. On a scale of 1 to Jeff Stryker, it's big.

Who pushed the actual panic button is debatable. Ken Starr--always in that driveway, always with that Big Gulp-size Styrofoam cup of coffee, relentlessly playing "Six Degrees of Monica Lewinsky"--gave rise to President Clinton's Unwilling National Dialogue on Sex. Every press conference is turned into a town meeting on sex, no matter what visiting head of state is standing next to the First Babe Magnet. "Are you an insatiable sex addict?" "Do you consider oral sex, sex?" (I am so glad he's not into anal sex.) Even the grande dame of press conferences, Helen Thomas, shouts out, "Mr. President! Show me the monty!" One suspects there is someone behind the podium and that's why he talks so long.

With banks merging with banks merging with insurance companies merging with entertainment conglomerates merging with phone companies merging with networks merging with arms makers and with nations merging into one European Union, we are--wink, wink, nod, nod--told that bigger is better. Better for whom? Certainly not for poor people, who are actually described as the "unbanked." Not better for me. I dialed a wrong number the other day and bought a small prison by mistake.

Into this straight sex panic comes the panacea, the so-called magic bullet, Pfizer's Riser, the Mo' Bigger Blues, Viagra. What was originally tested as angina treatment to help blood flow to the heart proved unsuccessful in opening the coronary arteries but very successful in keeping a penis erect. This side effect was discovered when test subjects were reluctant to turn in their leftover pills. The drug's name, suggesting vigor and a trip to Niagara Falls, had been kicking around the company for years. So had Sunny Boner, but Viagra seemed a better fit.

Fueled by stories from Rogained newscasters smirking over their noticeably rising anchor desks, an average of 10,000 prescriptions were written per day in the first month of availability. Some enterprising doctors had rubber stamps made to prevent hand cramping, while other unscrupulous doctors sold through www.penispill.com without so much as a hello, how are you, first I'm going to take your blood pressure, Who knew there was so much impotence in this, the last remaining superpower?

And Viagra is not just for diabetic geezer boomers in Florida, which already looks thicker and straighter on my map. I asked my harried-looking local pharmacist if any women were taking it. She was standing in front of a hastily written THE VIAGRA IS HERE! sign. She shook her head and said with a glimmer of disgust on her usually stoic face, "No, only old men with canes."

What is the trickle-down effect, if you'll pardon the image, for the gay community? My gay men friends think it will make straight men happier, which is good for gay men who are often the target of straight sexual resentment. Maybe with something to do at home other than spin cats by the tail, Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, even Dan Burton will retire.

It promises to be one heck of a summer. Viagra is already a registered drag name in Miami. Tea dances will be sponsored by Absolut Viagra and replaced by hour-long V dances. Don't Panic! will put out a BUGGER IS BETTER T-shirt. At circuit parties, renamed Eli Lillith Fairs, someone will have to announce, "Don't eat the brown Viagra." There will be Viagra testing at the Gay Games in Amsterdam. If you're not on it, you're disqualified.

In all the Viagra-rama there is never any mention of Viagra verite: safe sex, condoms, responsibility, or, dare I say it, rape. I for one am nervous. I am going to stay home this summer and watch the WNBA. In that alternating week that I am gay, I'll watch that missing episode of Ellen--"Did Somebody Say Cochlea?"--in which Ellen goes in for a routine hearing test and is set upon by a right-wing ear, nose, and throat man determined to enlarge her ear bone. Or maybe I'll develop something for gals. Here's a name that's been knocking around for years--Virago.