According to Viagra's official website, men should avail themselves of the little blue pill no more than once a day. So that's exactly what I did: I took Viagra no more than once a day—only I did so for exactly two weeks straight.
Now, I realize it may sound a bit excessive to be ingesting the world's top erectile dysfunction (ED) pill as if it were everyday Ibuprofen, but I was determined to find out what it was like. Would I turn into a sex god? Would my mood soar? Would I hallucinate? Would the downward blood flow affect my brain? Well, there was only one way to find out.
Some relevant backstory: I'm 40 years old and thankfully still very sexually active, and I've been experimenting with Viagra for many years (though only sparingly). But for this article, I was definitely entering unchartered waters. Nervous? A little. Excited? Definitely. More than anything, I was curious about what it would be like to walk through the world at full sexual charge.
Curious to know more? Keep reading for the nine things that happened when I took Viagra every day for two weeks.
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What Happened When I Took Viagra Recreationally
1. Viagra was effective for much longer than four hours.
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Viagra comes in three different sizes: 25mg, 50mg, or 100mg. In the past, I've found that 25mg always did the job just fine. However, my journey begins with a bottle of the 100mg tabs which I've chosen to cut into thirds.
During my 14-day experiment, there were a few nights when sex was in the cards and I happened to have had one too many drinks. As I expected, the dose certainly did the trick—and then some. In fact, I found myself to be very prone to sudden, rock-hard erections for most of the following day.
The reason? Viagra doesn't stop working after four hours. Rather, four hours is its half-life, meaning its effectiveness drops by 50 percent. Another four hours and it drops by 50 percent again. "Viagra should be mostly gone after about 16 to 20 hours," according to GoodRx.
So, even at my usual 25mg dose, I still woke up each morning with enough Viagra in my system to result in a penis so hard a cat couldn't scratch it.
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2. Viagra might have been a (very effective) placebo.
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During the two weeks I spent taking Viagra, I couldn't help but notice that my erections felt harder, fuller, and more abiding over the course of an evening of sex. However, according to urologist Arthur Burnett, MD, professor of urology at Johns Hopkins Medicine, I might be tricking myself. Burnett says guys like me who have no physical problems achieving and maintaining an erection are basically throwing their money away by using Viagra recreationally.
"If erections are really intact, Viagra does not make a better erection," he says. Could that mean that a mental rather than a physical problem was making my natural erections seem less impressive than chemically aided ones?
3. Viagra helps with performance anxiety, I learned.
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Stress, depression, relationship trouble, low self-esteem, and sexual performance anxiety often get the better of erections. They've certainly been known to get in the way of some of mine. Psychotherapist, sex counselor, and author Ian Kerner, PhD, suggests that Viagra can help in these instances.
"I do find a higher percentage of men are dealing with sexual anxiety and sexual problems related to erectile quality and so there are more men dealing with situational ED and taking Viagra," he says. "The effect often for these men is a firmer, more consistent and dependable erection."
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4. I had some side effects from Viagra.
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When I took the Viagra, I experienced flushing: a warm feeling in my cheeks and ears that was also accompanied by a notable redness. Another unfortunate side effect of dilated blood vessels was the sudden and severe nasal congestion that made it impossible to both breathe through my nose or smell my partner—things that I really like to do when I'm having sex. (To mitigate this, I learned to employ a nasal spray with oxymetazoline hydrochloride when popping my pill.)
In 2015, a meta-analysis of 150 trials determined that while Viagra is the most effective of the various ED drugs on the market, it also has the highest incidence of side effects—headache, upset stomach, vision loss, blue-tinged sight, back pain, muscle pain, nausea, and dizziness, just to name a few common ones.
Another rarer side effect can be having a rock-hard erection that doesn't abate. The medical name for a perma-stiffy is called priapism. "It develops when blood remains in your penis and can’t drain," explains the Cleveland Clinic.
While priapism might sound appealing to a guy interested in having his best sex, it's important to know that an erection that refuses to go away can cause permanent damage—including amputation. As the Viagra warning goes, "If you have an erection that lasts more than four hours, get medical help right away."
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5. What I ate was of utmost importance when taking Viagra.
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I realized that what and how much I ate affected how quickly the Viagra went to work. On an empty stomach, I was feeling flushed and—if turned on—sporting an erection within 20 minutes. If, however, I'd eaten a burger and fries, it was more like 40 minutes. This is confirmed by the company's website, which says that a fatty meal can lengthen the amount of time Viagra takes to work.
6. I was ready to go again in no time with Viagra.
I also noticed a couple of other benefits from taking so much Viagra, including shorter refractory time (meaning: the length of time between ejaculating and being able to have sex again).
"Some have used [Viagra] to enable faster recovery of erectile ability after ejaculation," says Burnett, thereby backing up my observation. In fact, Burnett's views on the recreational use of Viagra by men without ED are perfectly encapsulated by a 2003 study entitled: "Sildenafil does not improve sexual function in men without erectile dysfunction but does reduce the postorgasmic refractory time."
RELATED: 5 Body Language Signs That Mean Your Partner Is in the Mood, According to Experts.
7. It took longer to orgasm with Viagra (which could be a good thing).
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Not having control over my orgasm has rarely been a personal issue. I chalk it up to my discovery of masturbatory edging as a young teen. That said, I noticed that, during this experiment, I really had to make an effort to bring myself to orgasm—despite having a throbbing, long-lasting erection that felt both great to me and my partner.
This phenomenon was looked into back in 2005 when researchers sought to find out if Viagra also helped with premature ejaculation (PE). The study concluded that Viagra "increased confidence, the perception of ejaculatory control, and overall sexual satisfaction, and decreased the refractory time to achieve a second erection after ejaculation in men with PE."
Another study from 2007 demonstrated that greater ejaculatory control was more than just a perception and proved that Viagra can be both effective and safe in the treatment of PE. Talk about getting plenty of bang for your buck.
8. I learned that not everyone appreciates marathon sex sessions all the time.
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With great power comes great responsibility. And if you've got a penis like a crowbar, increased ejaculatory control, a mind less distracted by performance anxiety, and the refractory time of a horny 15-year-old, you may run the risk of your partner wanting or needing to tap out at a certain point.
"I want you to come now," is basically a nice way of saying, "That's enough of that, I'm bored/chafed/exhausted/too busy to do this all day long." During my experiment, this line was said to me on numerous occasions.
How long people like to have sex for is incredibly varied, of course, but, according to a 2008 study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, sex therapists defined intercourse lasting 1 to 2 minutes as "too short," 3 to 7 minutes as "adequate," 7 to 13 minutes as "desirable," and 10-30 as "too long." In my case, the more time went on, the earlier these cease-and-desist requests came in.
RELATED: 60 Sizzling Sex Positions That Will Spice Things Up—Tonight.
9. I realized you can overdo it and it will be bad.
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Given what Viagra, taken recreationally, can do—and did for me during a very fun two-week experiment—you'd be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that upping the dose means upping the good times.
But take heed: Unless you really suffer from ED, you probably don't need it. And if you're taking it because you're drinking too much, well, I'd drink less than try to fight it with the pill.
For what it's worth, the internet is rife with accounts of men who overdid it with Viagra and ended up suffering heart attacks, death, and, in the case of a 66-year-old farmer in Colombia, requiring emergency surgery on a penis gone gangrenous in the wake of a Viagra overdose. (Truth.) The biggest, hardest, proudest erection in the world isn't worth taking the risk of that happening.
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