The way to a man's heart
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Friday Nov 27 2009
Despite the focus having historically been on enticing women into bed, there have also been a plethora of love potions aimed at men with increased stamina as their goal.
Casanova, for example, was said to breakfast each morning on 50 oysters to feed his sexual prowess and fortify him for the day's sexcapades.
The Aztec ruler Montezuma drank 50 -- evidently a magic number -- cups of hot chocolate a day in order to service his harem of 800 women.
Chinese legend has it that the 'Yellow Emperor' Huang Ti girded his loins over 4,000 years ago with a special potion made from 22 herbal ingredients. Non-royal males later made do with the honey-based drink of mead to increase their sexual stamina upon marriage (after which presumably the 'honeymoon' was over?)
But sometimes a man can get too much of a good thing. The Ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus wrote of a wild orchid called satyrion which, when dried and ground to a powder, formed the basis of a drink which allowed a man to perform 70 acts of intercourse in a row. Excitable males all over Greece seized upon the plant to the point that it was eaten to extinction. Shame that.
Irish Independent
