Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant. Welcome yourself, buddy.
Speaker 1: Welcome Josh, Thank you, Chuck. Sure that felt pretty good? Actually,
Speaker 1: did it? Just try it? Try it? Welcome yourself. Welcome Chuck.
Speaker 1: How do you feel relaxed? Good? Good? Yeah, it has
Speaker 1: a nice effect. It does you know what it doesn't
Speaker 1: have a nice effect. It depends on what you're talking about. Okay,
Speaker 1: well I'll just tell you. Okay, Spanish fly. But it
Speaker 1: turns out I did a little research on this. Um
Speaker 1: I found out that Spanish flight is not even a fly.
Speaker 1: It's a type of beetle, true and the active ingredient
Speaker 1: it's actually crushed up, dried and crushed up beatles powdered
Speaker 1: correct powder. And the reason they powder the beatles is
Speaker 1: because they're trying to get to this um, this acid
Speaker 1: that the beatle emits when it's um scared, when it's
Speaker 1: it's threatened. And this acid, actually, you know, has long
Speaker 1: been thought to create amorousness in people. But that's bunk. Correct.
Speaker 1: I can tell you the reason they they they thought
Speaker 1: they were aroused. They're actually confusing euro genital tract irritation.
Speaker 1: This stuff actually burns from the inside out. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it can actually cause kidney damage and I think convulsions
Speaker 1: and death. No, Spanish fly, you should never take this
Speaker 1: for any reason. No, so, of course, you know, as
Speaker 1: as you know I I'd like to do lots of research.
Speaker 1: It's like my thing is right, Um, I started researching
Speaker 1: aphrodisiacs in general, and here we are at this podcast
Speaker 1: intro there, thank you. I believe the word comes from
Speaker 1: the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. Is that right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I hear. And an aphrodisiac, by definition, is
Speaker 1: an element that evokes or stimulates, uh, sexual desire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we should probably make the distinction because I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people think aphrodisiacs um are are performance sexual
Speaker 1: performance enhancing compound or whatever, right, and not true at all,
Speaker 1: Like a viagra would definitely not be considered an aphrodisiac. No, no,
Speaker 1: so uh, nor would Spanish fly right. Correct. Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about sexual arousal chuck, Okay, all right, let's just
Speaker 1: keep it cool, Chuck, if I had a dime for
Speaker 1: every time he told me that I would keep it cooler.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about sexual arousal keeping cool, okay, gotcha? Um? So,
Speaker 1: medically speaking, sexual arousal um begins when we take in
Speaker 1: something through one of our senses, um, that that we
Speaker 1: find sexually stimulating, right, yes, And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the limbic lobe kicks in. Right, That's where it all starts.
Speaker 1: This is part of the brain's reward center, and it's activated,
Speaker 1: and uh, it says, hey, I am sexually stimulated. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna send a neurological signal through the nervous system
Speaker 1: down to the blood vessels in the pelvic area, and
Speaker 1: it says open, sesame, and the blood vessels open and
Speaker 1: all this blood comes rushing in. And even better, because
Speaker 1: this wouldn't do a whole lot, the blood vessels close
Speaker 1: behind this this influx of blood, so the door shuts,
Speaker 1: essentially keeping the blood well not trapped. But well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I say, trapped is fun? Okay, I guess that just
Speaker 1: has a negative implication, right. Well, whether whether it's trapped
Speaker 1: or not, what you got is an erect penis and
Speaker 1: an erection in women as well. Yeah. I was surprised
Speaker 1: to find this as well. The clearter is actually goes
Speaker 1: undergoes a very similar process. And there you have it.
Speaker 1: So all of a sudden you are turned on and
Speaker 1: basically ready for sex. But that's not it. There's there's
Speaker 1: other physiological responses going on when you're when you're sexually aroused, right,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm told. Can you fill me in on those?
Speaker 1: I certainly can. Well, your heart rate increases, UM, and
Speaker 1: pleasure producing chemicals like nora, epinephron and dopamine are released
Speaker 1: into the brain and it's it's go time, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that that's sexual arousal and UM. For an aphrodisiac
Speaker 1: to work, it would have to produce sexual arousal, right,
Speaker 1: And it could do this in one of two ways, correct,
Speaker 1: through the mind, like basically recreating that or stimulating that
Speaker 1: right absolutely. For instance, something that might increase blood flow
Speaker 1: to your sex organs. It might simulate feelings of intercourse,
Speaker 1: so that has the effect of creating desire, right, okay,
Speaker 1: or it can also just go straight to the horse's mouth,
Speaker 1: right so to speak. Go ahead, Well it can it
Speaker 1: can create increased circulation, increased circulatory flow in the genitals,
Speaker 1: and that's actually chemical physical reaction that takes place. Right.
Speaker 1: The problem is is UM as far as our beloved
Speaker 1: f d A UM Food and Drug Administration. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for that. I was trying to
Speaker 1: come up with a peanut butter salmon elogy but couldn't
Speaker 1: maybe too soon. Actually, UM, they they they don't recognize
Speaker 1: any compound, any UM, any chemical at all as an aphrodisiac, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, they've done studies over the years, plenty of them,
Speaker 1: but they can't absolutely say with certainty that one thing
Speaker 1: is an aphrodisiac or not because the libido is a
Speaker 1: hard to define and be even harder to study. Well,
Speaker 1: I was also interested to find out, UM, we're not
Speaker 1: entirely certain how testosterone and estrogen factor into this. UM.
Speaker 1: It turns out that, you know, we know that testosterone
Speaker 1: has an impact on sexual arousal because men who UM
Speaker 1: have trouble getting sexual or men who have low testosterone
Speaker 1: production have trouble getting sexually aroute. So we know it
Speaker 1: factors that just don't quite know where UM and testosterone,
Speaker 1: you know, usually associate estrogen with women. UM. But testosterone
Speaker 1: has an effect on their sexual arousal as well. Women
Speaker 1: who participated in a two thousand study at the University
Speaker 1: of you trecked Um. They gave them a testosterone sublingually
Speaker 1: and they found that um genital arousal um increased dramatically
Speaker 1: really in women with low libido. Yeah. Interesting, So they
Speaker 1: didn't they didn't report an increase in sexual arousal. But
Speaker 1: you know, by extension, you could say, you know, right, well,
Speaker 1: I do know that testosterone therapy is something that men
Speaker 1: undergo that have a low libido, whether it's a cream
Speaker 1: or I think they have injections, or if they like
Speaker 1: to get in bar fights, that's why they do that too. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the FDA doesn't recognize anything, but there's still plenty
Speaker 1: of people out there who think certain foods, certain extracts,
Speaker 1: plants um are aphrodisiacs. And this is this is definitely new.
Speaker 1: Like some of these these ideas go really far back.
Speaker 1: How far back? Well, it turns out that the Persians
Speaker 1: were fairly randy folks um and and we're talking ancient
Speaker 1: Persia Um. I believe pre Karma Sutra, which came out
Speaker 1: in uh oh, I don't know I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and invite some viewer mail and say the sixth
Speaker 1: century a d. Right, So the Persians were they had
Speaker 1: one belief that honey it was an aphrodisiac. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: apparently it has no uh no active ingredient in it
Speaker 1: whatsoever that could produce an aphrodisiac effect. Um. But there
Speaker 1: is an interesting little tidbit in there, isn't there. I
Speaker 1: think you're about the honeymoon. Yes. Yes, they would drink
Speaker 1: honey for a month after they got married, and that
Speaker 1: was called the honeymoonth which later became honeymoon. Is that right?
Speaker 1: And if you go by the lunar calendars the ancient
Speaker 1: Persians did, then a moon from full moon to full
Speaker 1: moon is a month. So yeah, honeymoon and even further
Speaker 1: back I think, um, ancient Rome. Yeah, well that's not
Speaker 1: further back, that's about the same time. Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: big into aphrodisiacs. Um. I think one of their favorites
Speaker 1: is oysters, right, Yeah, Oysters usually tops the list. When
Speaker 1: people are going to make a top ten list of aphrodisiacs,
Speaker 1: people always put oysters at the top. And one of
Speaker 1: the reasons those a few reasons, Um, one of the
Speaker 1: reasons this is loaded with zinc and zinc. If you
Speaker 1: don't have enough zinc is a man, then your sperm
Speaker 1: count and your fertility are affected. And it also has
Speaker 1: a bunch of iron, and an iron deficiency could lead
Speaker 1: you to be too tired, which doesn't usually lend itself
Speaker 1: to uh to love making as it were. And a
Speaker 1: final reason, and I think this might segue over to
Speaker 1: something else, is that a lot of aphrodisiacs are phallus's,
Speaker 1: that is, they resemble a sex organ. Well, an oyster
Speaker 1: is has been said that it resembles the female sex organs.
Speaker 1: And I know another one on the list was avocados
Speaker 1: or supposedly an aprodesias because they in fact, I think
Speaker 1: that's known as the testicle tree in ancient Rome because
Speaker 1: they resemble the man's testicle aztecs aztecs. Yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: they grow in pairs in their wrinkly and that people
Speaker 1: considered avocados um aphrodisiacs, right, And that's a common theme,
Speaker 1: I know, you know, um it's something that just resembles
Speaker 1: a sex organ. Uh, you know, carrots, cucumbers, bananas, bananas,
Speaker 1: um figs. Figs are said to resemble the female genitalia. Interesting.
Speaker 1: Um so, yeah, all these things have long been considered
Speaker 1: across cultures sometimes to be aphrodisiacs. Right, It's hard for
Speaker 1: me to think that our ancient brothers and sisters were
Speaker 1: very smart when you hear about things like this. No,
Speaker 1: they were fairly superstitious folcus. Yeah, I mean it just
Speaker 1: sounds silly at this point. You know, avocados look like testicle,
Speaker 1: so if I eat them, that will make me viril.
Speaker 1: Well even even more direct than that, like not they
Speaker 1: they would also eat things that didn't just remind them
Speaker 1: of sex organs. They would actually eat sex organs of
Speaker 1: other animals. Yeah, that's the one I was a little
Speaker 1: blown away by. So, like, it makes you wonder, like
Speaker 1: how many countless um And usually it was an animal
Speaker 1: that was known for its prolific um uh copulation, maybe
Speaker 1: um orrility or strength. So yeah, it makes you wonder
Speaker 1: how many um countless tiger and rabbit and bull penises
Speaker 1: were eaten over the years, you know. Uh, and still
Speaker 1: it goes on today. Um, there's actually again non FDA
Speaker 1: approved drugs outside of the US that still grind up
Speaker 1: these things. I don't think anybody's dining on them any longer.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was one of your favorites, right yeah,
Speaker 1: um there, I guess we should say that there are
Speaker 1: some things out there that could conceivably be afrons acts.
Speaker 1: They could produce sexual arousal right right, they actually affect
Speaker 1: affect you chemically, they had. Yeah, if it's enough to
Speaker 1: actually I think that's where the gray area is exactly
Speaker 1: like it's there. But could it really have any you know,
Speaker 1: noticeable effect? Um? And one of those is jen Sing
Speaker 1: And there was a study that they they they I
Speaker 1: don't remember who conducted it, but they tested men, they
Speaker 1: gave them Jensing and then they tested them, uh using
Speaker 1: the mean International Index of erectile function, and uh it
Speaker 1: was shown to increased scores. So enough said, Jensing works.
Speaker 1: Have Yeah, it's all I saw mood booster two right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's an energy booster. Well stuff which is
Speaker 1: actually pretty tasty. Is it a lot of the afrodisiacs.
Speaker 1: They say it may not be a direct like chemical
Speaker 1: correlation to your you know, pulvic region, but it'll do
Speaker 1: things like give you energy and a sort of a
Speaker 1: two B two. See, if it gives you energy, then
Speaker 1: you're more likely to be aroused and in the mood
Speaker 1: for intercourse, whereas to something SAPs your energy, you're going
Speaker 1: to be you know, like if you eat a a
Speaker 1: lasagna by yourself, it's probably not gonna inspire you to
Speaker 1: unless you're Henring the eighth or something. I guess right, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you make a valid point. Um, it's just that
Speaker 1: science hates it when you jump from A to C exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, even if there is a direct correlation or
Speaker 1: causation that they really like to get that be in
Speaker 1: place first, you know. Um, but yeah, so and Jensing
Speaker 1: is not the only one. There's there's other Like you said,
Speaker 1: oysters are full of zinc and iron and other stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: And chocolate actually, which is always associated with love and romance.
Speaker 1: Um that it actually has final ethel mean and uh serotonin.
Speaker 1: So these things are actually an abundance supply. And we
Speaker 1: can't ingest these things. Our body produces these naturally, but um,
Speaker 1: we can ingest them and react to them conceivably. It
Speaker 1: makes you wonder how much chocolate you'd have to eat
Speaker 1: to really get off, like perhaps like several goblets full. Josh,
Speaker 1: I think you're talking about Mona Zuma, who was the
Speaker 1: Aztec ruler who reportedly it would drink like fifty goblets
Speaker 1: of chocolate a day to increase his sexual desire. I
Speaker 1: cannot believe he died from being murdered and beheaded right
Speaker 1: then exploding. Definitely chocolate. Oh, Jake, Should we talk about smell?
Speaker 1: I think we should because I gotta tell you, if
Speaker 1: I put stock into any um afrodisiac, it would have
Speaker 1: to be it would have to have something to do
Speaker 1: with smell. Yeah, it's not always food, it's not always taste.
Speaker 1: I know they say that like music and exercise can
Speaker 1: be afrodisiacs. Sure, well, yeah, I can tell you, um
Speaker 1: that swimming just the release of endorphins. Actually is it
Speaker 1: definitely increases um interest. Interesting is that Steri? It is
Speaker 1: very very well done there, josh uh. If we're talking smell,
Speaker 1: um Dr Hirsch, Dr Alan Hirsch of the Smell and
Speaker 1: Taste Treatment and Research Center in Chicago. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good center. Um. He did a study that looked at
Speaker 1: different smells, and as we were talking about the other day,
Speaker 1: you like to say he he spent a career wafting
Speaker 1: smells under men's noses to see what stimulated them and
Speaker 1: measuring their penises and right at the same time, and
Speaker 1: he found some interesting things. Um, cheese pizza, for instance,
Speaker 1: increased blood flow to the penis by five percent, buttered
Speaker 1: popcorn by nine and then the one that really shocked me, lavender,
Speaker 1: and then pumpkin pie actually increased blood flow by which
Speaker 1: that's pretty big. You could overcome a lot of sluggishness
Speaker 1: with with that much blood infusion, right, But that kind
Speaker 1: of to me. And Thanksgiving was when you pumpkin pile
Speaker 1: lot times. That flies right in the face of eating
Speaker 1: turkey and watching football and stuff in your belly. And actually,
Speaker 1: pumpkin pie didn't just have an effect on men, had
Speaker 1: a big effect on women. But the top or the biggest,
Speaker 1: the biggest one actually is a combination of sense that
Speaker 1: aroused women is a combination of the horrid and discussing
Speaker 1: black licorice flavored good and plenty candies mixed with cucumber smell.
Speaker 1: It drives the women, Patty. So look, story short, I
Speaker 1: keep those things in my glove compartment a cucumber garden,
Speaker 1: and you're yard, Yes, actually it's growing in my back seat. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's I have nothing else to say. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's anything else. Take but I do, actually I do
Speaker 1: have more to say. Let's hit pheromones up real quick.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this is you're all over this. So pheromones
Speaker 1: basically have long been identified as like a way that
Speaker 1: maybe we attract one another. Remember that awesome study you
Speaker 1: told me about. I can't remember what podcast it was,
Speaker 1: but they they had women um wearing shirts for like
Speaker 1: a week and then they had guys smell the shirts
Speaker 1: to determine their level of attraction by smell. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was right on the money. Yeah. Well, if
Speaker 1: if it was right on the money, then they really
Speaker 1: looked out because you need a m a a an
Speaker 1: extrasensory organ that not all of us humans have a
Speaker 1: memoroe nasal organ. Never heard of it? Okay, Well, basically
Speaker 1: it's like it's like an addition to our to our
Speaker 1: old factory nerve or noses basically, and we can pick
Speaker 1: out packets of information from arimones. Uh I don't know
Speaker 1: if we can necessarily, that's never been proven, but in
Speaker 1: the animal kingdom it's very prevalent. Uh so. And they
Speaker 1: pheromones are produced and emitted through urine, right, So if
Speaker 1: your dog e spray somewhere and then another dog comes
Speaker 1: along and just can't stop sniffing. What the other dogs
Speaker 1: doing is actually determining the health of the uh, the
Speaker 1: urinating dogs um immune system and also determining if it
Speaker 1: would be a good match to produce offspring, because apparently,
Speaker 1: ultimately what you want when you mate with another persons
Speaker 1: as far as animalistically speaking, um, you are looking for
Speaker 1: somebody with a compatible but opposite immune system so that
Speaker 1: the offspring you produce has the resistance to the most
Speaker 1: disease as possible. Well, and the same in humans. That's
Speaker 1: what the original smell study from the other podcast, right, Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the problem is not all of us have
Speaker 1: that vemarone nasal organ um. But there was a study
Speaker 1: that that what we emit pheromones in our sweat, by
Speaker 1: the way, are urine, which is good for us, because yeah,
Speaker 1: it'd be we'd have a different society if if that
Speaker 1: were the case. Well, there was a study. It was
Speaker 1: a kind of an informal study. Um, and uh, these
Speaker 1: guys sprayed um pheromones on one member of a set
Speaker 1: of twin girls and popped the two of them side
Speaker 1: by side at a bar on a Saturday night, right,
Speaker 1: and waited to see if there was a difference in
Speaker 1: which one was hit on more. The one that got
Speaker 1: the boost of pheromones was picked up three times more
Speaker 1: than our identical, yet untreated twin sister. So the girl
Speaker 1: that was laced with pheromones very cool. So pheromones aphrodisiacs.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've gotten a lot off my chest, right.
Speaker 1: I know they a lot of people believe in ephrodesiacs,
Speaker 1: but the scientific community, the FDA, as you said, does
Speaker 1: not support it. And the scientific community thinks there's also
Speaker 1: likely that it just could be a placebo. If you
Speaker 1: if you think you eat an oyster and you're gonna
Speaker 1: feel a little more inspired, uh sexually, then you're gonna
Speaker 1: eat the oyster and feel inspired. And hey, you know
Speaker 1: what if that if, even if you're just fooling yourself whatever,
Speaker 1: I say that and justifies the means in that case
Speaker 1: placebo's work. Yeah, well good so, Chuck, thanks for doing
Speaker 1: that with me. Um. I think it's listener mail time.
Speaker 1: Hold your horses, Josh, it's not quite time yet. We
Speaker 1: have to give a little shout out to our blog.
Speaker 1: We have a new blog on the website. As you know,
Speaker 1: how self works Dot com and our blog is called
Speaker 1: stuff you Should Know appropriately and you and I each
Speaker 1: post once to once a day. We we try and
Speaker 1: scour the news world for interesting tidbits that aren't quite
Speaker 1: up to par for an entire show episode. And we
Speaker 1: want to get fans interacting and kind of chatting about
Speaker 1: these things. Yeah, you can. You can access that through
Speaker 1: the home page at how stuff works dot com. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: leave comments, And anybody who wants to see Chuck in
Speaker 1: his famous cool guy flat cap is a fine fine
Speaker 1: photograph of him on every post. Actually, and yours as well.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Chull. That's a good photo of you. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot of appreciated. So the goofy one that
Speaker 1: was written so now okay now is a listener male time. Yes,
Speaker 1: let's get on with it, Josh, I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: pull the train into Limerick junction. Yeah, I liked. I
Speaker 1: like this trend. We went from Haikus the limericks, I
Speaker 1: don't know what's next, I don't know and uh an
Speaker 1: epic poem maybe. No, we're gonna get the iliad from
Speaker 1: fim listening now, just a couple of limericks here. Ryan
Speaker 1: of Victoria, British Columbia, fine Canadian friend. Have you ever
Speaker 1: been there? No, that's one of my favorite cities on
Speaker 1: the planet. I've heard it's awesome. It is awesome. It's
Speaker 1: very cool. Everybody's very friendly. It's like a tiny city
Speaker 1: with like mini skyscrapers and everything, and it's just awesome.
Speaker 1: It's prettish Columbia too, So sure nice, all right. Ryan
Speaker 1: has this to say, as I wore an uncomfortable sweater,
Speaker 1: I sat down and wrote you this letter. Josh and
Speaker 1: Chuck love Hi Kus, but Hiku's make me snooze because
Speaker 1: we all know that limericks are better. Yes, that's a
Speaker 1: good one, Ryan, And the final limerick today is from
Speaker 1: Brendan Franklin of Tucson, Arizona, another cool town college town.
Speaker 1: The podcasting host Josh and Chuck and the cast that
Speaker 1: they host or don't suck. They tell me how stuff
Speaker 1: works and as one of the perks, I'm no longer
Speaker 1: an ignorant schmucke and Brendan, we agree, you're not an
Speaker 1: ignoran schmuck. You're you also may be the first person
Speaker 1: on the plant ever you schmuck in Limerick. Oh no
Speaker 1: way huge and Limerick clan is it I'm not very
Speaker 1: familiar with him. I guess I should say I'm surprised
Speaker 1: that we haven't gotten any dirty limericks yet, though, although
Speaker 1: now I think we could probably expect true. I'm just
Speaker 1: happy my name rhymes with schmuck. Yeah, well we knew
Speaker 1: that already. Yes, So, if you want to send Chuck
Speaker 1: and I a limerick not a high kup um, or
Speaker 1: if you just want to say hi, or if you'd
Speaker 1: like to just congratulate us on making it through how
Speaker 1: averrodcacs work without humiliating ourselves by cracking up um, you
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: HM brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you