Today, Tuesday 27 March 2018, marks 20 years since the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved Viagra as the first oral treatment for erectile dysfunction.

It’s proven rather popular since then, raking in at least $17 billion (R198 billion) during the past two decades.

Who would have thought that popping hout would be such big business, right? TIME have taken a look back at the reaction to when the pill first hit the market, and that image above is a snapshot of their cover story from their May 1998 story.

Before we get to that, a little backstory on how the blue magic came to be:

Its instant success was a “lucky accident,” as the magazine put it, given that Pfizer scientists discovered the drug by accident in the ’80s, when, while researching a treatment for chest pain, they saw that the compound with which they were experimenting was increasing blood flow to the penis instead of the heart.

The drug was a breakthrough as a quick and painless way to treat erectile dysfunction (ED) — a condition that, until then, had limited treatments that ranged from unpleasant and strange (the surgical attachment of slivers of goat testicle to the patient’s body) to poisonous.

Can’t have it all, I suppose.

OK, onto what TIME said in that cover story we mentioned earlier:

TIME’s cover story featured some memorable reactions from patients who remarked on how revolutionary the drug was. A 55-year-old man in St. Petersburg, Fla. described it as “a little package of dynamite.”

…The editor of Penthouse magazine, Bob Guccione — who blamed feminism for having “emasculated the American male” and putting too much pressure on men — expected Viagra to “undercut the feminist agenda” by removing that pressure, and thus “free the American male libido.” Writer Gay Talese pointed to the rush on Viagra as evidence that sexual potency was key to “men’s self-worth,” no matter how much society tried to tamp it down.

Meanwhile, the social critic Camille Paglia said that she wanted men to “really re-examine why they need this pill” in light of the idea that if modern men couldn’t perform sexually “they’re going to evolve themselves right out of the human species.”

Shame, Bob, Viagra didn’t quite undercut that ‘feminist agenda’ now did it?

Some interesting numbers on the 20th anniversary via France24:

• 150 000: In the first two weeks of the drug going on sale, 150 000 prescriptions are written in the US.
• 65 million: In 20 years, 65 million prescriptions of Viagra have been written worldwide.
• 37 million: Between 1998 and 2013, 37 million men consumed Viagra, according to Challenges magazine.
• From $15 to $1: A single Viagra tablet was originally sold at $15 (a little over €12). The price then rose to $50 (€40) before falling back to $1 in 2017 with the release of a generic version in the USA. In Europe, where the first generics appeared in 2013, the average price of a tablet is €10.
• 27 minutes: This is the average time the drugs take to have an effect.
• 80: Percentage of Viagra randomly bought online is fake.

Happy 20 years in the business, Viagra.

[sources:time&france24]