Scatter Brained

C H A P T E R   3

---

76
S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
✖  ✖  ✖
Found in the bark of an African tree, yohimbine is a popular 
“herbal” aphrodisiac known in pharmacology circles as a 
“selective competitive al-
pha2-adrenergic receptor an-
tagonist.” And while that 
doesn’t make it a love potion 
per se, the rapid heart rate, 
high blood pressure, and 
overstimulation that result 
from high doses of the stuff  
do tend to 
feel
 like arousal. If 
those side eff ects aren’t de-
terrent enough, however, 
consider that the drug is at 
its most eff ective when, um, 
directly injected in the you-
know-where.
✖  ✖  ✖
Th
 e Snake King Completely 
restaurant in Guangdong, China, serves snake 100 ways, ev-
ery one of which is supposedly a libido lifter. One popular fa-
vorite is a hot wine in which fi ve snakes have been pickled. 
And while each snake should help on its own, they’re suppos-
edly even more eff ective with their numbers combined. After 
all, fi ve is a lucky number in China, which should aid the 
drinker’s chances of getting lucky. Th
  e Vietnamese also rec-
ognize the snake as an aphrodisiac, but prefer to swallow the 
still-throbbing heart of a cobra, with a little blood, from a 
shot glass. Luckily, they limit themselves to the lucky num-
ber one.
The Avocado 
“Down Low”
Somehow those Aztecs al-
ways seem to have their minds 
in the Mesoamerican gutter. 
So much so that they couldn’t 
help but look at avocados 
(which admittedly hang in 
pairs) and conclude that they 
looked a lot like human testi-
cles. In fact, they named the 
fruit-bearing tree the 
ahuacatl
—
or “testicle tree”—from which 
we get the English word 
avo-
cado.

---

77
✖  ✖  ✖
Despite what its name might have you believe, the Spanish fl y is 
neither Spanish, nor a fl y. It’s a beetle found primarily in south-
ern Europe, which, when dried and crushed, makes a powder 
that’s been used as an aphrodisiac since Roman times. It’s actu-
ally an irritant, though, and when ingested and passed through 
the kidneys, the Spanish fl y causes not arousal, but a painful 
swelling in the urinary tract. It has been said the Marquis de 
Sade fed bonbons laced with Spanish fl y to women during an 
orgy, accidentally poisoning them. Who knew the marquis was 
so romantic? Now we can’t speak for everyone, but hearing his 
tale defi nitely puts us in the mood for a good old-fashioned love 
story. . . .
09
  Secret Romance Novelists
Before becoming the Vatican’s top dog in 1458, Pius “the cool-
est-pope-in-history” II was an adventurer who traveled 
abroad on spy missions for the papacy, a smooth-talking dip-
lomat, and a prolifi c writer. (Th
  ink of him as a kind of medi-
eval James Bond with a slightly diff erent collar.) His 
Eurialus 
and Lucretia
 is still read today, partly because it’s an excellent 
early example of the epistolary novel, but mostly because it 
was written by a man who became pope—and it’s 
dirty
! Full 
of erotic imagery and surprisingly funny, it’s comprised of 
salacious love letters between Lucretia (a married woman!) 
and Eurialus, servant to the Duke of Austria.
✖  ✖  ✖
One of America’s greats, Joyce Carol Oates, has become 
 synonymous with high-falutin’ literature. So what’s a writer