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Health Tip

Peptides As Aphrodisiacs (Big Pharma Rescues Your Sex Life)

It seems that men wanted to control female sexuality since the dawn of time.  “Aphrodisiacs” (named after Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and desire) appear in the medical writings of ancient Greece, and in Chinese medicine a combination of acupuncture and herbs apparently worked wonders. Ayurvedic practitioners may have suspected that spinal chiropractic manipulation was more involved with blocked Kundalini energy than back pain. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Samuel Hahnemann, founder of homeopathy, eyeing Mrs. Hahnemann, toyed with a few titillating remedies, or that chiropractic founder Daniel David Palmer envisioned low libido as a spinal misalignment correctible by the appropriate manipulative therapies.

When I was a hormone-engorged, 14-year-old, the hot topic in this regard was an aphrodisiac called ‘Spanish fly’. We didn’t know what it meant beyond a Disney-fied housefly with a sombrero but thought if we could just find some of this magic stuff and sneak it into the punchbowl at the next youth mixer, we’d be able to transform all 8^th grade girls into (here’s a phrase from decades ago) “raging nymphomaniacs”. I’d later learn that Spanish fly was an actual herb–cantharides–and years later when cleaning out my father’s ancient drug store, I actually found a dust-coated bottle of the stuff, its contents long since evaporated away. Staring at it, I probably fantasized about the potential power I might have had, if only, if only. Cantharides was later shown in clinical trials to be worthless.

Until recently, medications to improve libido, prescription or over-the-counter, have been research-elusive. For men, raising levels of the male hormone testosterone helps (sometimes) and for women, a very small dose of testosterone helps (sometimes). Now that there’s an actual “named” condition Generalized Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder in Premenopausal Women (HSDD), which struck me as age-ism until I realized that Medicare Part C would never cover medications that gave women any pleasure. Antidepressants, yes. Aphrodisiacs, no.  

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