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[UpRiverSpencer]

Kiiiiiinda personal here, but it’s UpRiver so hey, what the heck. If there’s any place to deep-dive, it’s here.

I was wondering if any of you guys have had any luck regarding aphrodisiacs. I.e. things or substances (excluding pharmaceuticals), that have given you an edge or added excitement or desirability in the bedroom.

We hear things like shellfish, wine, dark chocolate and basically all things vasodilatation are awesome, but does anyone have any experience with this stuff? Let me know!

Thanks!

[UpRiverMatt]

Hey man, someone had to make the first sex post in the forum, good on ya!

Here are a few things I can attest to boosting excitement/libido. Listed in order of strongest to least:

-Red light/sunlight on full body, especially the gonads, but be careful there and only do a minute. Full sunlight on the chest and back is great for 10-20 minutes. Sunlight is preferable, but halogen lights personally work extremely well for this. Too well in fact. Juuv and other red light therapies I assume would work as well.
-Maca root powder
-Acetyl-L carnitine
-Heavy weight lifting
-Red meat/eating lots of fats and protein rich animal foods. Eating a lot in general
-Strangely enough, high quality B vitamins and lions mane had a “boosting” effect as well
-Lastly, lowered stress and cortisol seem to allow the body to recharge a bit more

I don’t even know if these are supposed to be aphrodisiacs, but I learned mostly by accident that they had this side-effect, at least on me :p

[UpRiverGreg]

Hahaha, great thread Spencer!

I’ve personally never been much of a believer in aphrodisiacs. It always seemed like using sex to sell snake oil to me.

Very interesting reading about your experiences there though, Matt!

[UpRiverMatt]

Thanks Greg, happy to put things out there to serve the greater good 😉

Also, kind of an interesting real life chat Greg and I had where we kind of concluded that anything that boosts your general energy levels might kind of work like an aphrodisiac just giving you more energy to direct wherever you choose.

[UpRiverSpencer]

Yeah, that makes sense.

I guess I wonder though if there does exist (it seems like it must) a plant, or root, or food of any kind that specifically has similar effects to Viagra/Cialis, or something cognitively stimulatory.

You hear about “horney goat weed” and “tribulus” and MACA. All these various lotions and potions that claim they reign supreme when it comes to getting hot and heavy in the bedroom. I guess I’m just curious if any of these actually have a correlative link to libido in particular. Because I can tell you that if I have 7 coffees, I definitely have more energy, but directing that to sex, I feel would not work out for the best haha.

Something that is energizing may have the opposite effect on sex. You may become anxious, or paranoid etc etc. So I feel that simply because you have more “energy” does not necessarily mean a higher sex drive. Wouldnt you agree there is definitely a time where calming down is actually more beneficial or libido and performance?

[UpRiverMatt]

That’s true, but I would differentiate between stimulants and baseline energy boosters. I guess with stimulants, you don’t generate more energy as a baseline, you just burn what you have faster and also turn on faster rmps or become higher strung and more focused or wired if that makes sense. I think you can be both calm and have high energy, and you can be wired or anxious and have low energy. I don’t think stimulants necessarily make you horny, but baseline energy boosters give you the capacity to be more horny if the energy is directed towards that. Just conjecture though.

A good example of this is caffeine vs. a supplement I recently encountered called Energenesis. Caffeine boosts energy short term, but this causes a crash later because energy production hasn’t truly increased. Energenesis is a nutritional formulation specific to mitochondria that actually increases the number, size, and power output of the mitochondria. This yields higher baseline energy levels in the long term.

Either way, I guess this is a bit different than the answer you’re looking for with aphrodesiacs. I would guess that horney goat weed, maca and other “potions” would have this effect. I looked it up actually just now and quickly found one nice double blind placebo controlled study that shows it increases libido at least in those with sexual dysfunction, so it may be reasonable to assume it also increases libido in those with regular sexual function:

“We sought to determine whether maca, a Peruvian plant, is effective for selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)-induced sexual dysfunction. We conducted a double-blind, randomized, parallel group dose-finding pilot study comparing a low-dose (1.5 g/day) to a high-dose (3.0 g/day) maca regimen in 20 remitted depressed outpatients (mean age 36+/-13 years; 17 women) with SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction. The Arizona Sexual Experience Scale (ASEX) and the Massachusetts General Hospital Sexual Function Questionnaire (MGH-SFQ) were used to measure sexual dysfunction. Ten subjects completed the study, and 16 subjects (9 on 3.0 g/day; 7 on 1.5 g/day) were eligible for intent-to-treat (ITT) analyses on the basis of having had at least one postbaseline visit. ITT subjects on 3.0 g/day maca had a significant improvement in ASEX (from 22.8+/-3.8 to 16.9+/-6.2; z=-2.20, P=0.028) and in MGH-SFQ scores (from 24.1+/-1.9 to 17.0+/-5.7; z=-2.39, P=0.017), but subjects on 1.5 g/day maca did not. Libido improved significantly (P<0.05) for the ITT and completer groups based on ASEX item #1, but not by dosing groups. Maca was well tolerated. Maca root may alleviate SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction, and there may be a dose-related effect. Maca may also have a beneficial effect on libido."

There are other studies out there as well I saw!

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