I Tried An Erectile Dysfunction Pill That Works In 10 Minutes. Here’s How It Changed My Sex Life.

AT THIS POINT in my life, I can usually get an erection when I want one (which, as a sex writer, is pretty often). But that wasn’t always the case. I’ve struggled with getting hard on and off for years, ever since I was 17. Back in my college days, it was a real issue. Often, when I went to have sex with someone, I couldn’t get erect, and to put it kindly, it really fucked with my head. I was mad at myself and kept wondering what the hell was wrong with me. (I also had a few partners mad at me and wondering what the hell was wrong with me.)

After working through a lot of my performance anxiety in therapy, now, at 33 years old, my erectile dysfunction isn’t nearly as bad as it once was. I’d say I currently struggle getting hard like 25 percent of the time, as opposed to 80 percent.

I work out a few times a week, have no heart issues, and I can get erections while I sleep, so I know it’s not a physiological problem. Whenever I can’t get hard, the root is psychological: I’m trying to have sex with someone I really like, I find them drop-dead gorgeous, or I’m in the middle of a threesome. Basically, when the stakes feel high, my dick stays down.

Of course, you don’t need a hard penis to have fun. There’s more to sex than penetration, and you can always use your hands and mouth. But I’ve seen the faces of my partners when I can’t get erect—often, it’s a mix of frustration and pity—two emotions you don’t want your partner to have in the bedroom.

So, for the past seven or so years, since Viagra went generic and could be prescribed easily via telehealth (meaning, I never had to step foot in a doctor’s office), I’ve taken “the little blue pill” as needed. But while Viagra is easy to get, it can be tricky to use. It takes roughly an hour to work on me, so I do my best to time it right. If I were on a dinner date that I thought would end with sex, I’d pop a Viagra after paying the check, before heading back to my apartment.

But I’ve misjudged before. Sometimes, she didn’t want to have sex that night—she just wanted to make out. Once alone, I’d have to jerk off vigorously to get my dick to go down.

Worse still, there were times I misread the situation in the opposite direction: I thought sex was off the table, so I didn’t take anything, only for her to ask me to come upstairs for a nightcap. I wasn’t able to get hard because I was so in my own head, and shit, that really sucked. A few times, my not being able to get erect has ended the relationship before it ever had a chance to really begin.

Luckily, in the past few years, there have been medical advancements for ED beyond the little blue pill. For example, there are Ro’s (formerly known as Roman)“Daily Rise Gummies,” which consist of 7 mg of Tadalafil, the generic version of Cialis. Instead of a pill, it’s a gummy you chew and swallow, and after three days of daily use, you can essentially get hard all the time, as there’s always a small dose of ED medication built up in your system.

I loved those (you can read about my experience here), but eventually, they felt unnecessary. I wasn’t having that much sex, say once every week or two, so taking a med daily felt a little unnecessary. Not to mention, with any ED medication, a common side effect is having a stuffy nose, and I didn’t love having a perpetual stuffy nose.

Recently, I tried a new ED lozenge from Ro called Ro Sparks, and the fast-acting medication has totally changed my sex life.

Ro Sparks is a prescription, sublingual medication—meaning it dissolves under your tongue—that contains the same active ingredients as Viagra (sildenafil) and Cialis (tadalafil) in one treatment. Because it’s a sublingual, it gets absorbed faster than if you swallowed a pill or gummy. Therefore, it only takes roughly 10 minutes to feel the full effect. And since it’s both Viagra and Cialis, the Viagra will help you get hard quickly (i.e., short-acting), and the Cialis will help you easily obtain an erection for up to 36 hours (i.e., long-acting).

It’s worth noting that Ro Sparks’s dosing is pretty high, containing 55 mg of sildenafil and 22 mg of tadalafil. I usually take 50 mg of sildenafil or 10 mg of tadalafil with my generic prescriptions, and the Daily Rise gummies contained just 7 mg of tadalafil—that’s enough to get me hard, so this was more than double my usual intake on the tadalafil (Cialis) side.

Safe to say, they promise some serious bang for your buck: Four sublinguals cost $33, so it’s only $8.25 a pop, which is just a few dollars more than generic Viagra and Cialis pills.

This all sounded ideal, but of course, I needed to try it for myself.

So, I logged into my Ro account and answered a few questions online. The doctor approved the medication within 24 hours, and a few days later, four Ro Sparks were discreetly shipped to my mailbox.

I decided I’d give it a whirl one night when I was heading to a sex party. I placed it under my tongue as I arrived, and I’ll be honest: It tastes a little spicy/funky. It’s hard to describe, but I wouldn’t say it tasted great. You won’t spit it out, but you won’t confuse it with candy either (which, honestly, is for the best). For what it’s worth, this seems to be par for the course with sublinguals, not just Ro Sparks.

The Daily Rise gummies do taste better—similar to regular old gummy bears—but here’s my last word on the matter: If you can’t handle the three minutes it takes to dissolve, my dude, are you that serious about getting erect? A very small price to pay, in my opinion.

Once I arrived at the sex party, there was a lot of visual stimulation. Within ten minutes (and without touching my penis), I was walking around hard as a rock; my penis pointed straight up to the sky. My dick was so full, so engorged with blood, no amount of nerves would get it soft. I fucked three people that night, and felt like a goddamn rockstar. I came with my first partner, but my penis didn’t go down, so I just kept having sex—exactly what the doctor ordered. (Honestly, though, it could have gone down if I’d just waited a few minutes, but I wanted to keep having sex and took advantage of the little to no refractory period.)

The best part was that, the next day, I ended up having sex with a partner of mine and was still able to get a huge erection. Because each Ro Sparks lasts 36 hours, you can take one Friday night, and still be able to get erect at the drop of a hat until Sunday morning.

Overall, these pros largely outweighed the cons. Besides the not-great taste, the only other con is that Ro Sparks made my nose a little stuffy, but this is to be expected with any ED medication. It might have been a little bit worse than usual, just because it is a pretty high dose. However, once the sublingual is out of your system, your nose is no longer stuffy. It’s just stuffy for that evening and the next day, whereas with the daily gummies, it was stuffy every day.

But that’s kinda the point. Ro sparks doesn’t fuck around. And if regular ED meds haven’t been working for you the way you’d like them to, then yes, absolutely, you should try them out. Get hard now, thank me later.