Aphrodite Was No Lady

By Jesse Birnbaum

Everybody who is somebody has got to take a hit now and then. When you are famous, people start rehashing your sex life, and, first thing you know, your reputation goes down the tube and your nomination with it. Happens all the time. Gary Hart. John Tower. Aphrodite.

Yes, fabled Golden Aphrodite! Also known as Kallipygos (Beautiful Buttocks). Borne full-blown from the sea (aphros means foam; -dite rhymes with nightie). Worshiped for centuries by amorous couples coupling clamorously. She was Homer's Goddess of Pure and Heavenly Love, but we forget that Homer was blind. So, alas, are we. Turns out that Aphrodite (Venus to you Romans) was not Ms. Clean at all but the Goddess of Naughty Sex. It is she we can thank for most + of mankind's sexual problems, and chief among these is our obsession with her elusive elixir, the aphrodisiac.

Nothing is safe from her depredations, not even endangered species. Government agents recently rounded up a band of poachers accused of slaughtering hundreds of black bears in the Northeastern U.S., ripping out their gallbladders and selling them for profit. The gallbladders are dried and ground into powder and sent to Asia, where they are sold for as much as $540 an oz. for "medicinal" purposes. Men who take a tiny pinch of the powder are convinced that it enhances their libido. They believe that if you devour parts of a powerful animal, you will absorb its sexual vitality. And if bear gallbladder fails, they will contrive potions and lotions from the hump of the camel, the penis of the tiger or the horn of the rhinoceros.

So it was Aphrodite who led us on. For starters, according to one account, she was created from the genitals of the god Uranus, who had been hurled, dismembered, into the sea by his ill-tempered son Cronus. Her husband was Hephaestus, blacksmith to the gods and the ugliest fellow in the pantheon. This may explain why Aphrodite lost no time in fooling around with squads of other gods and not a few surprised mortals, among them an obscure shepherd or two. It is no wonder that Aphrodite should continue to be so seductive even to this day. Underachieving, oversexed men -- and for that matter overachieving, undersexed men -- keep pounding at this hussy's door, and she is always at home.

Her earliest visitors, the ancient Greeks and Romans, tried just about any concoction to have their way with her. A scholarly study on the subject by Alan Hull Walton tells us that the pith from the branch of the pomegranate tree and the testes of animals were considered hot stuff. So were certain foods. "If envious age relax the nuptial knot," advised the poet Martial, "thy food be scallions, and thy feast shallot." Onions were a favorite, as were garlic, pepper, savory, cabbage, asparagus, eggs, pineapples, snails ("but without sauce," cautioned the fastidious Petronius) and just about any creature dredged from Aphrodite's watery birthplace.

In biblical times, the mandrake root spelled sexual power, possibly because it resembled the male reproductive organs. Early Arabic authors created a veritable Aphrodisiac-of-the-Month Club. The Perfumed Garden for the Soul's Delectation, by a 15th century sheik named Nefzawi, recommended sparrow's ! tongue and, at bedtime, a glassful of honey, 20 almonds and 100 grains of the pine tree. Indian experts prescribed a powder made from the bones of a peacock. Europeans in the Middle Ages preferred the testes or urine of all sorts of animals. One Frenchman favored the flesh of a crocodile ground into powder and mixed with sweet wine ("Works miracles," he promised). Some Europeans taught that eating an apple that had been soaked in the sweat of your lover's armpit was a sure means of seduction -- provided, of course, that you had prior access to your lover's armpit.

As tastes became more refined, sensuous dining did the trick. Richelieu (the 18th century duke, not, thank heaven, the Cardinal) gave elegant little suppers for his friends and their mistresses, all of whom dined in the buff. Madame de Pompadour got interesting results with truffles. Brillat-Savarin, the French jurist and gastronome, found that the truffle "makes women more amiable and men more amorous." Rabelais, on the other hand, got his kicks from marzipan.

Americans are no less fascinated by the allure of aphrodisiacs. Some claim to use Spanish fly, a powder made from the blister beetle, but it is poisonous and can kill you. The ginseng root, long a staple among Asians, is popular in the U.S. But nobody has yet bottled the genuine article, and until that happens, one simple rule will continue to apply: a tiger's penis or powdered peacock bones are aphrodisiacs only if you think they are.

Americans are not comfortable lurking in drugstores, waiting for a chance to ask sotto voce for a pack of pomegranate pith, so we disguise our pursuit of Aphrodite in more acceptable forms: the pulse-racing perfume, the sexy dress, the dirty dancing, even the lofty status. No less a personage than Henry Kissinger asserted that view in the '70s. "Power," he said, perhaps with sparrow's tongue in cheek, "is the great aphrodisiac."

But not everybody can be Secretary of State. For more and more people, the ultimate aphrodisiac is called Physical Fitness, a bigger turn-on than snails without sauce. Work out at the gym, eat oat bran and other nutritious foods, and you will have to fight off would-be lovers with a stick. To be sure, oat bran is not very titillating, but think of it as your contribution to the preservation of endangered species.

It may also help to remember that fitness as a means of courting Aphrodite has a long, respectable history. The canny Sheik Nefzawi listed bodily health as one of eight essentials for sexual delight. The other seven: "Absence of all care and worry, an unembarrassed mind, natural gaiety of the spirit, good nourishment, wealth, the variety of the faces of women and the variety of their complexions." And maybe just once in a while it wouldn't hurt to have a nice glass of camel's milk mixed with honey.