‘Stiff Questioning’ over Viagara Purchase

That’s pretty much how The Guardian has headlined its report on the revelation that Brazil’s armed forces had bought thousands of impotence pills.

Also, according to the report:

Rio congressman Marcelo Freixo said he would ask the public prosecutor to investigate the erectile “outrage”.

Ciro Gomes, a centre-left politician who hopes to challenge Bolsonaro in October’s presidential election, said that while the armed forces deserved respect, their acquisition departments seemed bent on demoralizing the military.

“Unless they’re able to prove they’re developing some kind of secret weapon – capable of revolutionizing the international arms industry – it’ll be tough to justify the purchase of 35,000 units of a erectile dysfunction drug,” Gomes opined.

Political observers called the military’s “Viagra binge” an embarrassment to a populist president who frequently boasts about his supposed virility, referring to himself as “imbrochável”. The word roughly translates into English as “unfloppable” or “flaccid-proof”.

The navy and air force – which between them had reportedly bought more than 30,000 pills – offered an innocent explanation: the drug was supposedly being used to treat pulmonary hypertension.