When I use a word . . . Aphrodisiacs—taxonomy and doctrines (2025)

1. Jeffrey K Aronson

1. Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

1. Follow Jeffrey on X (formerly Twitter): @JKAronson

Aphrodisiacs

An aphrodisiac is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as “A drug or preparation inducing sexual desire.”1 And in its adjectival sense it is defined as “Of or relating to sexual desire: that tends to increase sexual desire.”

But these definitions do not do justice to the many forms that aphrodisiacs can take, nor the uses to which they have been put.

The term “preparation” in the OED’s definition is itself defined in the dictionary as “A specially prepared or made up substance, as a medicine, cosmetic, foodstuff, etc.,”2 and although the “etc.” in this definition is clearly intended to encompass many other possible types of substances besides medicines, cosmetics, and foodstuffs, there are several varieties of aphrodisiac that are not subsumed by the definition. For example, aromas and styles of dress can be considered aphrodisiac, as can honeyed words, lewd or titillating pictorial representations, plays, verses, songs, or dances.

But aphrodisiacs do not have to be substantial. Not only appearances, but behaviours too can be aphrodisiac—glances, gestures, and other forms of body language. And so too can rapport. In Martin Brest’s 1992 movie Scent of a Woman, based on the Italian film Profumo di Donna, itself derived from a novel by Giovanni Arpino, Il Buio e il Miele (Darkness and Honey), Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Slade, an ex-army officer, blinded in an accident of his own making, and played in an Oscar winning performance by Al Pacino, entrances women by his ability to recognise and name the perfume they are wearing or the soap they have used.

Furthermore, aphrodisiacs have been used for several different purposes, not merely to induce sexual desire. A prime purpose is to attract another individual to the point of falling in love, which is not synonymous with sexual desire, although the two are strongly connected. This emerges from the OED’s definition of a related word, “amatory”: “Of, relating to, or characterized by love, (in later use) esp. sexual love or desire.”3 “Amatory” was also used to mean “A potion or drug capable of exciting love or sexual desire; a philtre.” In this sense it is first recorded in English from 1635, antedating the earliest known written use of “aphrodisiac” in 1710. An even earlier meaning of “amatory,” a love poem, dates from 1614.

Aphrodisiacs have been used for other purposes too, for example to treat female infertility and what is sometimes called loss of virility. One assumes that the latter generally implies erectile impotence, although it might also imply bodily strength; in some cases it implies impaired sexual vigour because of age or physical exhaustion. Some aphrodisiacs have been suggested to improve the quality and quantity of sperm, and this may be connected with the use of aphrodisiacs to encourage conception in general and the production of male children in particular.

In a more general way aphrodisiacs have also been used to engender a sense of personal and even communal wellbeing, mediated by erotic and sexual satisfaction.

Some medicines that have been used to treat a range of conditions have been claimed at some time or another to be aphrodisiacs as well. And some supposed aphrodisiacs have been used as medicines for a range of conditions, often without evidence of efficacy. Royal jelly, for example, has been claimed to be efficacious in the treatment of skin and joint disorders, anaemia, osteoporosis, and many other conditions, as well as being able to improve libido and sexual vitality and having rejuvenating properties.4

Some aphrodisiacs are unclassifiable. For example, flagellation has often been promoted as a method of arousing sexual appetites. Urtication, flagellation with stinging nettles, is a peculiar variety of this practice. As one 19th century text put it, “flagellation ... was supposed to reanimate the torpid circulation of the capillary or cutaneous vessels, to increase muscular energy, promote absorption, and favour the necessary secretions of our nature. No doubt, in many instances, its action as a revulsive may be beneficial; and urtication, or the stinging with nettles, has not unfrequently been prescribed with advantage.”5

Aphrodisiacs—a taxonomy

I have a list of over 450 items that at different times have been claimed to be aphrodisiacs. I have classified them roughly into 10 categories, ordered according to frequency:

● Plants and plant products, including trees, herbs, fungi, fruits, nuts, and vegetables (48%).

● Animals and animal products, including land animals, sea creatures, birds, and insects (21%).

● Foodstuffs and additives (8.8%).

● Medicines (7.0%).

● Appearances and behaviours, including language, body language, singing, and dancing (4.8%).

● Elements, minerals, gemstones, and resins (2.8%).

● Alcoholic drinks (2.1%).

● Aromas (2.1%).

● Charms (2.0%).

● Human products, such as semen and menstrual blood (1.3%).

This classification is rough, partly because there are many recipes for aphrodisiacs that involve combinations of different types of substances, for example, herbs compounded in alcohol with added honey or sugar, and partly because the boundaries between foodstuffs and both animal and plant products are often hard to discern. Furthermore, several of the medicines in the list, such as belladonna, cinchona, and opium, are derived from plants.

The frequencies of the different categories somewhat resemble those in a UK political party’s leadership race, with plants and plant products way ahead, animals and animal products a poor second, and the rest nowhere. However, these frequencies do not reflect actual usage of the different forms of aphrodisiac. Alcoholic drinks, for example, have been widely used throughout the ages, even though few forms of them are specified in the list—ignoring the matter of congeners, alcohol is alcohol, no matter what form it takes.

The Doctrine of Signatures

Some aphrodisiacs were regarded as such because of a physical resemblance to genitalia. This accords with the Doctrine of Signatures, generally applied to plants,6 but sometimes also to animals and minerals,7 which depended on the idea that many plants, animals, and minerals have distinctive features, particularly marks, shapes, or colours, often considered God given, that indicated their medicinal properties.8

The idea was an ancient one. The Roman natural philosopher Pliny the Elder, for example, wrote in his Naturalis Historia (Book XXV, §LXXV), “Thelyphonon herba ab aliis scorpion vocatur propter similitudinem radicis. cuius tactu moriuntur scorpiones. itaque contra eorum ictus bibitur.” [“Thelyphonon is a plant that some call scorpion, because its root looks like one. Just a touch of it kills scorpions, and it is therefore taken as a drink to treat their stings.”] Paracelsus (1493-1541) based many treatments on the same doctrine and a 1621 treatise by the German philosopher Jakob Böhme (1575–1624), De Signatura Rerum, enshrined the idea of a signature.

Anything that looks like male genitalia would have been a candidate for use as an aphrodisiac, phallic objects for example. That is why bananas, carrots, and cucumbers are on the list. But the most phallic of all plants are the fungi that belong to the Phallaceae, such as the common stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus); its Latin name rather gives it away.

The same applied to anything that looked like a testis, again invoking the doctrine. Orchids are reputedly aphrodisiac because the paired tubers of some varieties resemble testicles. Indeed the name “orchid” comes from the Greek word for a testicle, ὄρχις, as anyone who has had an orchidectomy probably knows.

Nor are female genitalia disregarded in all this. The oyster, whose open shell fancifully resembles the external female genitalia, has become one of the most famous supposedly aphrodisiac of foods.

In Book XII of the Aeneid, Virgil recounts how Venus used dittany (Origanum dictamnus) to heal her wounded son, Aeneas. This should not be taken as an indication of any incestuous impulse, but the fact that it was Venus who had used it may have created an aphrodisiac association. Dittany is also a hermaphroditic flower, possessing both male and female generative parts. Other hermaphroditic flowers that have been regarded as aphrodisiacs include water lilies and horse chestnuts.

Add to the list plants whose forked roots are perceived as being groin-shaped. They include bryony, ginseng, and mandragora or mandrake.

Those who enjoy its flavour may be surprised to learn that the word “vanilla” comes from the Spanish word “vainilla,” a diminutive form of “vaina,” from the Latin word “vagina,” a sheath, which a vanilla pod fancifully resembles. Hence the use of vanilla as an aphrodisiac.

The Doctrine of Similars

The Doctrine of Similars is not too dissimilar to the Doctrine of Signatures. It has been attributed to Paracelsus, who opposed the Galenic doctrine of opposites, contraria contrariis curantur, referring to the habit of choosing treatments with properties that were counterparts to the supposed properties of the disease being treated, hot drugs to treat cold diseases for example, thus restoring balance to disordered humours. Paracelsus instead chose to believe that like would cure like, “seins gleichen das sein geheite hat,” as he put it in the Volumen medicinae Paramirum of 1530.

Animal testes have themselves long been regarded as aphrodisiacs. If human testes are important in matters of love and lust, perhaps animal testes are too. One mediaeval recipe for impotence recommended marinading the left testicle of a goat plus powdered burdock seeds in brandy for 21 days, then cooking the mixture with semen from a crocodile or a dog. The resulting paste was applied to the genitalia, resulting in an immediate response. Other male animal genitalia, particularly those of asses, cockerels, hares, monkeys, stags, and stallions, were used for similar purposes from Greek and Roman times onwards.

The Russian born surgeon Serge Voronoff (1866-1951) became famous while working in Paris because of his belief that the transplantation of monkey testicles into men could induce perpetual youth, with all the vigour that goes with it. He didn’t know about transplant rejection. The Scottish surgeon David Hamilton dedicated his 1986 book The Monkey Gland Affair to Voronoff, “who, I believe has taken undue blame for the excesses of the gland transplant era, I admire his enthusiasm and persistence; moreover, he was not the first, nor the last, scientist to deceive himself.”9

The Doctrine of Analogy

According to this doctrine, if a plant, for example, produces a particular effect, another of the same family will do likewise.

In his 1785 dissertation on the uses of the foxglove, William Withering wrote that Digitalis purpurea was a plant that “ranks among the Luridae, one of the Linnaean orders in a natural system.” It had, he explained, “for congenera, Nicotiana, Atropa, Hyoscyamus, Datura, Solanum, &c. so that from the knowledge we possess of the virtues of those plants, and reasoning from botanical analogy, we might be led to guess at something of its properties.” Nicotine, belladonna, henbane (Hyoscyamus niger), thorn apple (Datura stramonium), and tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) have all at some time been claimed to be aphrodisiacs. However, during the 19th century, against the grain, digitalis was regarded as an antiaphrodisiac.10

Withering’s espousal of the botanical analogy was out of character. In a letter to Lady Catherine Wright, dated 3 March 1785, he wrote, “Great care should be taken however, in reading, not to mistake hypotheses for facts ... In reading, it is my earnest desire that you totally disregard all theories and all reasonings from analogy, until you find yourself well acquainted with all the leading facts and even these facts must only be received with slow consenting academic doubt.” Good evidence-based advice.

A final thought

Aromas, words, appearances, behaviours, alcohol; all can no doubt enhance the possibility of love or at least lust.

In a scene in Tony Richardson’s film of Henry Fielding’s novel Tom Jones we see our hero, played by Albert Finney, and Mrs Waters, played by Joyce Redman, whom he has picked up on the road, seducing each other by the way in which they devour their food—crab, poultry, fruit—picking it up with their fingers, dallying with it and attacking it, in almost complete silence punctuated by occasional animal grunts. The aphrodisiac effect of the scene is particularly heightened by the way in which they slurp down their oysters. The erotic combination of food, sounds, and body language irresistibly leads to a candle-lit dash to the bedroom, where the candle is snuffed. Cut!

But, given the placebo effect, perhaps you only have to think that something is aphrodisiac and it is.

Footnotes

• Competing interests: None.

• Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; not peer reviewed.

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