Late night radio advertising

So, I had the opportunity to work past midnight earlier this week. I went home for dinner and to put the kids to bed and then came back around 9:30 because that's when the hardware was available. At 2:30 am, I began the 20 minute no-traffic homeward trek. I was listening to an LA based news radio station - the California equivalent of WBZ for those back in Mass. Surprisingly, they were still doing the news. More surprisingly were the things that were being advertised. I don't know if it was the lateness or what, but one ad amused me enough to make me want to write about it...(WARNING - For those of you with children on your laps who can read, this is a little risque.)

It was for a "male enhancement" product called Proton Extreme. Just the name alone still makes me laugh. First off, a proton is a microscopic particle. Do you really want to associate a product for "enhancing" your maleness with something sub-atomic? Or perhaps they were referring to the power of the proton. And this is no ordinary proton. This one's Extreme! You know what, you have to be pretty desperate to want something labeled as "extreme" messing with that portion of your anatomy.

Name aside, I was amused by the claims they were making. Apparently, you can have more potent, harder, and stronger erections. Sounds like the opening to the Bionic Man. Steve Austin. A man barely aroused. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. Make him better, harder, stronger. The Six Million Dollar Manhood. *cue music* Bah na na naaaaaah....

I realize that this product is in the supplement area where claims do not have to be substantiated by science, but aside from that, aren't all three of those things the same when discussing the topic at hand? Assuming they are not, how is this measured? For the claim of "stronger", all I could picture was guys with little weights strapped to their units trying to flex them. Er..I mean..BIG MANLY WEIGHTS. Yeah. More potent? Usually something more potent requires less of it to have the desired effect. So, a more potent erection gets your partner there faster? Or it's so potent, that it will work even with puny equipment? Dunno. Just trying to evaluate the claim. Harder speaks for itself, but again, how is that measured? Well, in a classical sense, this is how a hardness test is done. The Rockwell hardness test sounds like a good one. Although, perhaps, given what the purchaser feels he suffers from, perhaps the Microhardness Test is more appropriate. For those who don't want to follow the link, hardness tests typically involve attempting to cut the object with objects of a know hardness or vice-versa. Youch! No thanks! They couldn't pay me enough to help with that study. The other type of hardness test is to put a load...er...weight on a diamond, point down and resting on the material under test, and see how far it penetrates. Yow again!

So, it seems clear that science is not involved in the sale of this product. But it was "developed by doctors", so it must be effective, right?