Encyclopedia of Aphrodisiacs

Ancient India and Persia considered pearls to have medicinal properties as a love potion. They were the teardrops of the moon. Crushed and dissolved, they were considered intoxicating if you drank them. Nowadays, we know this is hokey, and although pearls are still used in traditional Chinese medicine, they’ve been scientifically proven to have few medicinal properties. Regardless of science, it’s not hard to see why pearls were considered an aphrodisiac. They have a beautiful spherical shape, a smooth texture, and they feel great against the skin. Early man must have been fascinated by their feel and image, and their delicate nature probably appealed to the desire for females.

Encyclopedia of Aphrodisiacs is an entertaining and thoroughly engaging book. The photos and illustrations humorously document the real and phony sex aids all over the world, ranging from chocolates and wines to kooky things made from animal parts. It contains hundreds of legends about sex, love and life from primitive and more advanced cultures, though the more “advanced” ones are often no better. It’s as much a book about folk attitudes towards gender as it is about herbs and foods that will cause arousal.

A number of shellfish are covered in this book, and it’s not hard to see why they’re thought to get women excited. First off, they taste great and they can be a primer to desire other things, like chocolates. If you’re trying to reach the woman’s heart through her stomach, oysters are your best bet. But there’s another reason that’s clear from the illustration; the seam of an oyster resembles a vulva! Exotic hot peppers also have phallic appearances, and anyone familiar with Georgia O’Keefe and her phallic flower paintings will probably know what I’m talking about. In Turkey, there’s was a combination of spices and bitter green herbs known as the “Sultan’s Paste” that were once used on frigid women in the Harems. The drug’s powers are obvious; spices can stimulate the heart and raise blood pressure, and even cure depression.

Spanish Fly, the infamous cantharides beetle shell, gets several pages, though its reputation is all myth. Beetle shells all seem to cause temperatures and sweats, so they’re used worldwide in traditional medicines. All it does is irritate the urethra, causing a burning sensation that some might mistake for arousal. What you might end up with is an unwanted erection from the blood flowing in there, and you might end up going to the hospital to have it drained. Even without that, keep in mind that it’s an insect, and you could easily have an allergic reaction.

Reading this book was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. It should be put in the section of the library labelled “erotica” and makes better reading on a summer night than most romance novels. I bet this book could be made into a documentary, narrated by some smoky-voiced actress and with reenactments in place of illustrations. Not with any naughty stuff, we already had that with Emmanuelle and the five or six sequels. I’m talking about a more historical bend. It could start with Cleopatra’s crushed pearls, and progress to the Marquis de Sade drugging his party guests with Spanish Fly and turning the soiree into an orgy that shamed the entire aristocracy.

Maybe the French Revolution was the work of pissed-off peasants who didn’t get to go?