History of Aphrodisiacs

Throughout history, men and women have sought out stimulants to increase sexual drive and performance. The reasons are obvious, but the methods depend largely on culture and taste. Aphrodisiacs can include food, herbs, aromas and oils, but they often came from mythic notions rather than practical knowledge. These days, we understand a lot more about how aphrodisiacs work and can thus provide more reliable love remedies.

Basics

Almost anything can theoretically be an aphrodisiac, provided the local culture proclaims it so. More specifically, aphrodisiacs should excite the senses, stimulate the libido and increase stamina--highly subjective factors, to say the least. The term itself refers to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, who could drive people wild with lust if she wished. Her sacred totem was the sparrow, a bird considered quite randy by the ancient Greeks (the way we consider rabbits randy today). They often consumed the heart, brains or other parts of the sparrow as aphrodisiacs.

Cleopatra

The best-known early aphrodisiac user was Cleopatra, whose legendary sexual appetites brought empires to the brink of collapse. She supposedly specialized in scents and perfumes, as well as opiates to drug her lovers. Such potions likely contained bear grease, an Egyptian aphrodisiac that has little medicinal value today.

Galen and the Romans

The ancient Romans used many aphrodisiacs, from oysters to frankincense to menstrual blood to the infamous Spanish fly. Some of them had a basis in fact (oysters, for instance, contain lots of zinc, which facilitates male libido), but not all. The most prominent Roman scholar on the subject was a physician named Galen. He recommended "warm, moist" foods that produced a lot of flatulence, such as asparagus, mustard and peas. Besides the obvious connotations, he believe that such foods could create erections as easily as they created gas.

Thomas Aquinas

The monk Thomas Aquinas wrote about aphrodisiacs, since issues of the body (and childbearing) were of great importance to the Catholic Church. He applied a more commonsense approach to the topic than Galen, writing about healthy foods which produced "vital spirit." He also stressed the consumption of red meat and wine, cementing the well-founded reputation of alcohol as a reliable aphrodisiac.

Modern Aphrodisiacs

Many ancient aphrodisiacs persisted into the modern day (oysters and liquor being two of the most prominent), but some of them have caused their share of harm. The demand for aphrodisiacs such as shark fin soup and powdered rhino horn have driven many animal species to the brink of extinction, as poachers kill them to meet the demand for "enhancements." The rise of reliable medical aphrodisiacs--pills such as Viagra and Cialis--have provided extremely popular alternatives and may help reduce demand for outdated and damaging ingredients.