It was the drug that transformed the sexual landscape. Before Viagra, impotence meant shame and often the collapse of all but the most committed relationships. The discovery of its startling ability to restore men's faded sexual function triggered a social revolution as monumental as that caused by the contraceptive pill.
Today Viagra -- launched in the US 10 years ago this month -- is the world's most ubiquitous medical brand name. Type it into Google and a search throws up more than 4 million references: 10 times more than Prozac and 20 times as many as Botox, its nearest competitors.
The drug has also spawned its own catalog of jokes and become a byword for efficacy and impact. Nicole Kidman's nude scene in the play The Blue Room was famously described as "pure theatrical Viagra," for example, while in the US the Survivor TV series was labeled "CBS' Viagra," a magic pill that made the network virile.
But just how much of all this publicity is hype? Has the "wonder pill" really lived up to its promise? Has it been a universal force for good?
From the financial perspective there can be little doubt. In the decade since Viagra first went on sale, more than 30 million men in 120 countries have been prescribed it. In addition, many millions more have bought it illegally on the Internet, or taken a few from their mates in bars for recreational use.
Indeed, the take-off of Viagra was one of the fastest that a new drug has ever seen. Almost immediately after its launch in the US, it was being prescribed at the rate of at least 10,000 a day.
In Atlanta, urologist John Stripling wrote out 300 prescriptions on the day it became available.
And there is no doubt much of this proliferation has been to the good of men and women, as Graham Jackson, a consultant cardiologist in London and an expert on sexual problems, explained.
"More than 20 percent of breakdowns of relationships are caused because a man has erectile problems. It can cause agony for a man when he cannot perform as he feels he should," he said.
"A lot of partners are kind and supportive. A few are cruel. And when you have huge great men crying like babies in your clinic, you get pretty desperate for something that will put their problems to right as soon as possible. Viagra has done that in a great many cases that have come to my clinic, I am glad to say," Jackson said.
Certainly, the drug has brought joy to many relationships. However, it has also had -- in many cases -- a destructive impact.
"Now men have a drug to help them get it up and get going, they have also shown a worrying tendency to get up and leave -- for younger women," as one sex counselor put it.
In the process, Viagra has become the third party in many marriage splits, increasingly cited in celebrity divorce cases, most recently with Wendy and Johnny Kidd, parents of supermodel Jodie and makeup guru Jemma.
"Older men are more able to perform again, so they're going elsewhere -- to younger, greener pastures," said New York divorce lawyer Raoul Felder, who recently acted for the wife of a 70-year-old man who began cheating on her days after taking Viagra.
In Florida's retirement communities, rates of sexually transmitted diseases among elderly men -- who have started visiting prostitutes after taking Viagra -- are soaring, it emerged recently.
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