Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: How Aphrodisiacs Work

Episode Date: October 20, 2018

For thousands of years humankind has pursued the enhancement of sexual pleasure and performance through a plethora of medicines and practices -- but how many aphrodisiacs actually work? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Howdy, everybody. Happy Saturday morning. I hope you have watched your cartoons and have a belly full of sugary cereal, because right now you're about to listen

to our episode on Aphrodisiacs from March 12th, 2009. That's right, everyone. Lock the kids away, don't let them hear, because this one's all about food and drink that makes you, what do the birders say, randy? I believe so. So please do enjoy, everyone, Aphrodisiacs, right now. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HowStuffWorks.com.

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant. Welcome yourself, buddy. Welcome, Josh. Thank you, Chuck. Sure. That felt pretty good, actually.

Did it? Try it. Welcome yourself. Welcome, Chuck. How do you feel? Relaxed. Good. Good.

Yeah, it has a nice effect. It does. You know what, it doesn't have a nice effect. It depends on what you're talking about. Okay, well, I'll just tell you. Okay. Spanish fly, but it turns out, I did a little research on this.

I found out that Spanish fly's not even a fly. It's a type of beetle. True. And the active ingredient, it's actually crushed up, dried and crushed up beetles. Powdered, correct? Sure. It's a powder.

And the reason they powder the beetles is because they're trying to get to this acid that the beetle emits when it's scared. Right. When it's threatened. And this acid actually has long been thought to create amorousness in people. But that's bunk, correct?

I can tell you the reason they thought they were aroused. They were actually confusing urogenital tract irritation. This stuff actually burns from the inside out. Wow. Yeah, and it can actually cause kidney damage and I think convulsions are death. No Spanish fly.

You should never take this for any reason. No. So of course, as I like to do lots of research, it's like my thing. It is. I started researching aphrodisiacs in general. True. And here we are at this podcast.

Nice intro there. Thank you. I believe the word comes from the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, is that right? Yeah. That's what I hear? Sure. And an aphrodisiac by definition is an element

that evokes or stimulates sexual desire. Yeah, we should probably make the distinction because I think a lot of people think aphrodisiacs are a performance, sexual performance enhancing compound or whatever. Right, not true at all. Like Avagra would definitely not be considered an aphrodisiac. No, no.

So nor would Spanish fly, right? Correct. Let's talk about sexual arousal, Chuck. Okay. All right, let's just keep it cool, Chuck. If I had a dime for every time you told me that, I wouldn't be doing this one. Let's talk about sexual arousal.

Keeping cool. Oh, okay, gotcha. So medically speaking, sexual arousal begins when we take in something through one of our senses that we find sexually stimulating, right? Yes. And then all of a sudden, the limbic lobe kicks in. Right, that's where it all starts.

This is part of the brain's reward center and it's activated and it says, hey, I'm sexually stimulated. So I'm gonna send a neurological signal through the nervous system down to the blood vessels in the pelvic area. And it says open sesame and the blood vessels open and all this blood comes rushing in and even better because this wouldn't do a whole lot.

The blood vessels close behind this influx of blood. So the door shuts essentially. Yes. Keeping the blood, well, not trapped, but. Well, yeah, I say trapped is fine, Jordan. Okay, I guess that just has a negative implication. Right, well, whether it's trapped or not, what you got is an erect penis.

Right, and an erection in women as well. Yeah, I was surprised to find this as well. The clitoris actually undergoes a very similar process and there you have it. So all of a sudden, you are turned on and basically ready for sex. But that's not it. There's other physiological responses going on

when you're sexually aroused, right? It's what I'm told. Can you fill me in on this? I certainly can. Well, your heart rate increases. Right. And pleasure producing chemicals like norepinephrine and dopamine are suddenly released into the brain

and it's go time. That's right. Yeah, so that's sexual arousal. And for an aphrodisiac to work, it would have to produce sexual arousal, right? Right. And it could do this in one of two ways. That's correct, through the mind.

Like basically recreating that or stimulating that, right? Absolutely. For instance, something that might increase blood flow to your sex organs, it might simulate feelings of intercourse. So that has the effect of creating desire. Right, OK. Or it can also just go straight to the horse's mouth, right? So to speak.

Go ahead. Well, it can create increased circulation or increased circulatory flow in the genitals and same effect. That's actually a chemical, physical reaction that takes place. Right, the problem is, as far as our beloved FDA. Food and Drug Administration. Sure. Yeah, thank you for that.

I was trying to come up with a peanut butter salmonella joke, but couldn't. Maybe too soon, actually. Yeah. They don't recognize any compound, any chemical at all, as an aphrodisiac. Right, I mean, they've done studies over the years, plenty of them, but they can't absolutely say with certainty

that one thing is an aphrodisiac or not, because the libido is A, hard to define, and B, even harder to study. Well, I was also interested to find out, we're not entirely certain how testosterone and estrogen factor into this. It turns out that we know that testosterone has an impact on sexual arousal, because men who have trouble

getting sexual, or men who have low testosterone production, have trouble getting sexually aroused. So we know it factors in, we just don't quite know where. And testosterone, you usually associate estrogen with women, but testosterone has an effect on their sexual arousal as well. Women who participated in a 2000 study at the University of Utrecht, they gave them testosterone sublingually,

and they found that genital arousal increased dramatically in women with low libido, yeah. Interesting. So they didn't report an increase in sexual arousal, but by extension, you could say, you know. Right, well, I do know that testosterone therapy is something that men undergo that have a low libido. Yes.

Whether it's a cream, or I think they have injections. Or if they like to get in bar fights, that's why they do that too. Yes, Josh. Oh, yeah. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude,

bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars,

friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist?

So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you.

Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy.

You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. OK, so the FDA doesn't recognize anything,

but there's still plenty of people out there who think certain foods, certain extracts, plants, are aphrodisiacs. And this is nothing new. Like, some of these ideas go really far back. How far back? Well, it turns out that the Persians were fairly randy folks. And we're talking ancient Persia.

I believe Pre-Kamasutra, which came out in, oh, I don't know. I'm just going to go ahead and invite some viewer mail and say the sixth century AD, right? Sure. So the Persians, they had one belief that honey was an aphrodisiac. And apparently it has no active ingredient in it whatsoever that could produce an aphrodisiac effect. But there is an interesting little tidbit in there,

isn't there? I think about the honeymoon. Yes. Yes, they would drink honey for a month after they got married, and that was called the honeymoon, which later became honeymoon, is that right? Yeah. And if you go by the lunar calendar, as the ancient Persians

did, then a moon from full moon to full moon is a month. So yeah, honeymoon. And even further back, I think. Ancient Rome? Yeah. Well, that's not further back. It's about the same time. Yeah.

They were big into aphrodisiacs. I think one of their favorites was oysters, right? Yeah, oysters usually tops the list when people are going to make a top 10 list of aphrodisiacs. People always put oysters at the top. Sure. And one of the reasons, oh, there's a few reasons. One of the reasons is it's loaded with zinc.

And zinc, if you don't have enough zinc as a man, then your sperm count and your fertility are affected. Gotcha. And it also has a bunch of iron, and an iron deficiency could lead you to be too tired, which doesn't usually lend itself to love making, as it were. And a final reason, and I think this might segue over to something else,

is that a lot of aphrodisiacs are phalluses. That is, they resemble a sex organ. Which one? Well, an oyster has been said that it resembles the female sex organ. Sure, yeah. And I know another one on the list was avocados, or supposedly an aphrodisiac.

This one's my favorite, yeah. Because they, in fact, I think that it's known as the testicle tree in ancient Rome, because they resemble the man's testicles. Aztecs. Aztecs. Yeah, they grow in pairs, and they're wrinkly, and that people considered avocados aphrodisiacs.

And that's a common theme, I know you know. It's something that just resembles a sex organ, carrots, cucumbers. Bananas. Bananas. Figs, figs are said to resemble the female genitalia. Interesting. So, yeah, all these things have long been considered

across cultures sometimes to be aphrodisiacs. Right, it's hard for me to think that our ancient brothers and sisters were very smart when you hear about things like this. No, they were fairly superstitious folk, I think. Yeah, I mean, it just sounds silly at this point. Avocados look like testicles, so if I eat them, that will make me virile.

Well, even more direct than that. They would also eat things that didn't just remind them of sex organs. They would actually eat sex organs of other animals. Yeah, that's the one I was a little blown away by. So it makes you wonder how many countless, and usually it was an animal that was known for its prolific copulation, maybe,

or virility or strength. So yeah, it makes you wonder how many countless tiger and rabbit and bull penises were eaten over the years. And still it goes on today. There's actually, again, non-FDA approved drugs outside of the US that still grind up these things. I don't think anybody's dining on them any longer. No.

But yeah. I know ginseng was one of your favorites, right? Yeah, I guess we should say that there are some things out there that could conceivably be aphrodisiacs. They could produce sexual arousal, right? Right, they actually affect you chemically, but they don't know if it's enough to actually, I think

that's where the gray area is. Exactly. Like it's there, but could it really have any noticeable effect? And one of those is ginseng. And there was a study that they, I don't remember who conducted it, but they tested men. They gave them ginseng, and then they

tested them using the mean international index of erectile function. And it was shown to increase scores. So enough said, ginseng works. There you have it. Yeah. It's a mood booster, too, right? Yeah, I think it's an energy booster.

Well, yeah. They have that ginseng up stuff, which is actually pretty tasty. Is it? Yeah. A lot of the aphrodisiacs, they say, it may not be a direct chemical correlation to your pelvic region. But it'll do things like give you energy,

and it's sort of A to B to C. If it gives you energy, then you're more likely to be aroused and in the mood for intercourse, whereas if something saps your energy, you're going to be like if you eat a lasagna by yourself, it's probably not going to inspire you unless you're Henry VIII or something, I guess. Right. Well, yeah, and you make a valid point.

It's just that science hates it when you jump from A to C. Exactly. Even if there is a direct correlation or even causation, they really like to get that B in place first. Right. But yeah, so ginseng's not the only one. There's other, like you said, oysters are full of zinc and iron and other stuff.

And chocolate, actually, which is always associated with love and romance, it actually has phenylethylamine and serotonin. So these things are actually in abundant supply, and we can ingest these things. Our body produces these naturally. But we can ingest them and react to them conceivably. It makes you wonder how much chocolate you'd

have to eat to really get off, like perhaps, like several goblets full. Josh, I think you're talking about Manizuma, who is the Aztec ruler, who reportedly would drink like 50 goblets of chocolate a day to increase his sexual desire. I cannot believe he died from being murdered and beheaded rather than exploding death by chocolate.

Ooh, jakes. Nicely done, Chuck. Hey, dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show, Hey, Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey, Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips?

Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling

of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey, Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when

questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast

and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Should we talk about smell? I think we should, because I got to tell you, if I put stock into any aphrodisiac, it would have to be, it would have to have something to do

with smell. Yeah, it's not always food. It's not always taste. I know they say that music and exercise can be aphrodisiacs. Sure. Well, yeah, I can tell you that swimming, just the release of endorphins, actually, it definitely increases interest. Interesting.

Is that sterile enough of a word? It is, very well done there, Josh. Thank you. If we're talking smell, Dr. Hirsch, Dr. Alan Hirsch. Of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Center in Chicago. Yeah, that's a good center. He did a study that looked at different smells.

And as we were talking about the other day, you like to say he spent a career wafting smells under men's noses to see what stimulated them. Measuring their penises at the same time. And he found some interesting things. Cheese pizza, for instance, increased blood flow to the penis by 5%, buttered popcorn by 9%, and then the one that really shocked me, lavender and then

pumpkin pie, actually increased blood flow by 40%. Which that's pretty big. You could overcome a lot of sluggishness with that much blood infusion. Right, but that kind of, to me, in Thanksgiving, was when you eat pumpkin pie a lot of times. That flies right in the face of eating turkey and watching football and stuffing your belly.

And actually, pumpkin pie didn't just have an effect on men, it had a big effect on women. But the topper, the biggest one, actually, is a combination of scents that arouse women. Is a combination of the horrid and discussing black licorice flavor, good and plenty, candies, mixed with cucumber smell. It drives the women baddie.

So long story short, I keep those things in my glove compartment all the time. You have a cucumber garden in your yard. Yes, actually, it's growing in my back seat. Wow, I have nothing else to say. I don't think there is anything else to say. But I do. Actually, I do have more to say.

Let's hit pheromones up real quick. Oh, yeah, you're all over this. So pheromones basically have long been identified as a way that maybe we attract one another. Remember that awesome study you told me about? I can't remember what podcast it was. But they had women wearing shirts for like a week. And then they had guys smell the shirts.

Right, to determine their level of attraction by smell. Right. Yeah, and it was right on the money. Yeah, well, if it was right on the money, then they really lucked out. Because you need an extrasensory organ that not all of us humans have, a venmeron nasal organ. Never heard of it.

OK, well, basically, it's like an addition to our olfactory nerve, our noses, basically. Right. And we can pick out packets of information from pheromones. I don't know if we can necessarily. That's never been proven. But in the animal kingdom, it's very prevalent. And pheromones are produced and emitted through urine, right?

Right. So if your dog sprays somewhere and then another dog comes along and just can't stop sniffing, what that other dog's doing is actually determining the health of the urinating dog's immune system. Really? And also determining if it would be a good match to produce offspring.

Because apparently, ultimately, what you want when you mate with another person, as far as animalistically speaking, you are looking for somebody with a compatible but opposite immune system so that the offspring you produce has the resistance to the most diseases possible. Well, in the same in humans. That's what the original smell study from the other podcast was about.

Right. But yeah, the problem is not all of us have that venmeron nasal organ. But there was a study that what we emit pheromones in our sweat, by the way, our urine, which is good for us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'd have a different society if that were the case. I think so, yeah.

Well, there was a study. It was kind of an informal study. And these guys sprayed pheromones on one member of a set of twin girls and popped the two of them side by side at a bar on a Saturday night and waited to see if there was a difference in which one was hit on more. The one that got the boost of pheromones

was picked up three times more than her identical yet untreated twin sister. So the girl that was laced with pheromones. Very cool. Yeah, so pheromones, aphrodisiacs. I feel like I've gotten a lot off my chest. All right, I know a lot of people believe in aphrodisiacs, but the scientific community, the FDA, as you said,

does not support it. And the scientific community thinks there's also a likelihood that it just could be a placebo. If you think you eat an oyster and you're going to feel a little more inspired sexually, then you're going to eat the oyster and feel inspired. And hey, you know what? Even if you're just fooling yourself, whatever.

I'd say that N justifies the means in that case. Placebos? Work. Yeah, well, good. OK, now is it listener mail time? Yes, let's get on with it. Josh, I think we are going to pull the train into limerick junction.

Yeah, I like this trend. We went from Haikus to limericks. I don't know what's next. I don't know, an epic poem, maybe? No. We're going to get the Iliad from some listener now. Just a couple of limericks here. Ryan of Victoria, British Columbia, fine Canadian friend.

Have you ever been there? No. That's one of my favorite cities on the planet. I've heard it's awesome. It is awesome. It's very cool. Everybody's very friendly. It's like a tiny city with mini skyscrapers and everything.

And it's just awesome. It's British Columbia too, so. Sure, nice. All right, Ryan has this to say. As I wore an uncomfortable sweater, I sat down and wrote you this letter. Josh and Chuck love Haikus, but Haikus make me snooze because we all know that limericks are better.

Yes. That's a good one, Ryan. Fantastic. And the final limerick today is from Brendan Franklin of Tucson, Arizona, another cool town, College Town. The podcasting host, Josh and Chuck, and the cast that they host sure don't suck. They tell me how stuff works, and as one of the perks,

I'm no longer an ignorant schmuck. Nice. And Brendan, we agree, you're not an ignorant schmuck. You're a good guy. No, you also may be the first person on the planet ever used schmuck in a limerick. Oh, no way. No, OK.

It's huge in limerick land. Is it? I'm not very familiar with them. I guess I should say I'm surprised that we haven't gotten any dirty limericks yet, though. Although now I think we could probably expect that. True. I'm just happy my name rhymes with schmuck.

Yeah, well, we knew that already. Yes. So if you want to send Chuck and I a limerick, not a haiku, or if you just want to say hi, or if you'd like to just congratulate us on making it through how aphrodisiacs work without humiliating ourselves by cracking up, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com.

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart

radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.