aphrodisiac???
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Legend: Green M&M® Chocolate Candies are an aphrodisiac.
Origins: The
Mars Company of Hackettstown, New Jersey (now M&M/MARS), has been producing M&M Chocolate Candies since 1941. (The peanut variety was introduced in 1954.) Various rumors have since been attached to different colors of the candy: the green ones are an aphrodisiac; if the last candy out of a bag is red, make a wish and it will come true; if the last candy out of a bag is yellow, you should call in sick and stay home; orange M&Ms are good luck, but brown ones are bad luck. M&M/MARS notes that all these rumors were developed by consumers, not the company.
The rumor that these green candies are an aphrodisiac apparently started or first gained prominence in the 1970s, when students reportedly picked the green ones out of packages to feed to the objects of their desires. (At that time, an average of 10% of plain M&Ms and 20% of peanut M&Ms were green.) Why the green M&Ms were attributed with this power is unknown; perhaps it was because the color green has always been associated with healing and fertility. (The company itself routinely states that they "cannot explain any extraordinary 'powers' attributed to [green M&Ms], either scientifically or medically"; the same "powers" have also been claimed of green jelly beans and gummi bears.)
When red M&Ms were temporarily taken off the market after the FDA banned the use of red dye #2 in 1976, a rumor spread that the red ones were such a powerful aphrodisiac that M&M/MARS employees were pocketing them directly off the production line.
In 1992, a California lawyer named Wendy Jaffe cashed in on the legend and started a company named Cool Chocolates Inc. Her company's sole product was a green M&M-like candy sold under the name "The Green Ones." M&M/MARS claimed trademark infringement (in part because the characters on The Green Ones' packages were quite similar to the trademarked M&M cartoon figures), and as part of a settlement Ms. Jaffe agreed to change the name and packaging of her product. (Her candy was subsequently sold under the name "Greenies.") M&M/MARS started playing on the common image of green M&Ms with an "Is it true what they say about green ones?" advertising campaign in 1996. -
This is absolutely a true story — forward it around to friends who might get a kick out of it. Had the most interesting conversation with the top sales weasel at our company today. She came into my office and noticed I had a box of Altoids on my desk. (Have you had them? They are these obnoxiously strong peppermints made in England.) As soon as she saw them, she burst into laughter. Turns out she had recently had an affair with a guy who called her and left her an incredibly steamy voice mail message after an encounter. He went on and on about what a blow job goddess she was, how amazing she was, how he'd never be the same, etc. She was kind of puzzled, thinking: what did I do to this guy that was so different from my regular technique? She finally figured it out: she's a smoker, and before getting intimate with him, she had gone to the bathroom to "freshen up." Not having a toothbrush, she crunched on about four Altoids and then got busy. Apparently things went amazingly.
So she passed this little tidbit on to another female sales weasel, who immediately tried it out on her fiancee. Apparently this guy has never, ever been into oral sex, but liked the mint sensation so much that he asked her to stop and chew another Altoid mid-blow job. He is now a fellatio gourmand. This news has been going around our office. Having a box of Altoids on your desk is now like being part of the Secret Blowjob Goddess Society. It's the equivalent of having the hottest car or coolest computer. News spread like crazy among the females, who all went out at lunch to Walgreens to buy a box of Altoids (about $2 for 100 or so), and their partners across the city tonight are getting one hell of a corporate blow job. As far as company-wide morale boosting events, it doesn't get much better. Some of the men found out, too — they went out after work to buy them for their wives. They strategized on how to get their wives to eat them. And people wonder why I work in technology.
(For what it's worth — it really does work! It leaves a lasting tingle that is apparently quite exquisite.)
Origins: I'm
afraid it's going to take more than a box of Altoids to radically change anyone's sex life. Aspiring blowjob goddesses, take note.
First appearing on the Internet in early December 1997, this bit of imaginative prose captures imaginations as it promises an easy path to sexual ecstasy, something everyone is apparently looking for. The letter works on yet another level by supposedly letting those who receive it in on a big secret, thereby exploiting the normal human desire to be privy to "special information." Very powerful lures, both of these.
We want to believe — or at least kid about — our places of business being seething hotbeds of sexual adventure. The notion of a "Secret Blowjob Goddess Society" plays into that desire. But we're still uncomfortable with the notion of people we know having sex, so laughing about it over a box of mints discovered on someone's desk becomes a way of coming to terms with our feelings of unease, in much the same way as whistling in the graveyard makes us feel a bit more brave.
Typical of such faxlore, there's a dearth of checkable facts to work with. No names, dates, or names of companies are given, making it impossible to trace the story back to its source. Even so, it will long be passed around as a true story, a bit of super secret information only we really cool people know about. The trailing "For what it's worth — it really does work!" is the expected faxlore flourish, that little tagline ever-so-casually tossed in to convince the reader that not only did this really happen, but someone removed from the original story checked it out and is now vetting it. (Hey, if you can't trust unsigned and untraceable bit of netlore, what can you place your faith in?)
Accept the story for what it likely is, a lovely bit of fiction. Also buy stock in Altoids for you know there will be those who are going to feel the urge to test out this enhancement for themselves.
Despite the lack of scientific evidence to support the claim that mint in the mouth of the fellator would be felt on the penis of the receiver, some people have sworn they feel a little something when they try this with their partners. But don't get your hopes up — even among those who claim Altoids produces a sensation when used in this fashion, nothing earthshaking is being reported. Slight tingling or a momentary sensation of cold; that's it.
Judging from my e-mail, those who embark on this voyage of self discovery from the position of believing Altoids will set their sex lives on fire generally report sensing something a bit different or tingly about the Altoid-enhanced experience whereas those who don't start out from that position don't seem to pick up on anything more unusual than one partner having fresher breath this time around. I'm inclined to believe the phenomenon is largely one of the mind, not the body, and is akin to people swearing they hear improved sound from green-rimmed CDs despite conclusive evidence that there is no difference to be heard. On the other hand, similar rumors about enhanced oral sex circulated in the past about Binaca (a breath spray) and Close Up (a brand of toothpaste).
If you're set on believing this will do something for you, it probably will. But not to the point of being declared Blowjob Goddess of the Western World — even those who swear they feel some effect don't report anything all that remarkable.
Okay, so why does this bit of e-mailed pop wisdom find receptive audiences wherever it travels? Any bit of silliness about how to magically transform sex into something out of this world is always going to go over big; that's a given. We want to believe that if we but knew the secret, eternal joy would be ours. It's the same brand of madness that has us looking for a magic weight loss pill even though we quite logically know no such thing exists and that it's still a matter of the long way around: diet and exercise. We want shortcuts. Wanting them makes us believe they must exist somewhere.
In 1986 the popular television show LA Law ran smack into this refusal to believe such a shortcut did not exist. In a key episode, troll-like Stuart Markowitz won the beautiful Ann Kelsey's heart (and other assorted body parts) with the Venus Butterfly, a sexual secret a con whispered to him by way of repaying a favor. Here's where the line between television and reality blurred — fans refused to believe the Venus Butterfly was nothing but a made-up bit of storyline. Many "remembered" hearing about it before (which was impossible as the term was coined for this one episode; it didn't exist prior to that) but most likely confused hearing about the technique on the show with hearing about it from sources outside the show. It didn't matter though — they were convinced the Venus Butterfly was real. NBC and the show's producers were inundated with requests for the details of this super-secret fantastic sexual technique or position. Having already convinced themselves this information existed, callers weren't happy about being asked to take "There is no such thing" as an answer. -
Claim: Combining Coca-Cola and aspirin will get you high.
Status: False.
Origins: Various bits of popular "wisdom" circulate about what ingesting Coca-Cola and aspirin together will do. The more common (with the first two being by far the most popular) are:
it's an aphrodisiac
it's a great way to get high
it causes instant death
it cures headaches
Without exception, the beverage is always Coca-Cola and the pain killer is aspirin. No other products will do, apparently -- not even another soft drink, let alone a different analgesic.
These beliefs have been around for decades and are generally picked up in high school. Usually, a student hears only one of these old wives' tales and is unaware others outside his region have heard different things about the efficacy of that particular combination.
In some parts of the U.S., girls were in the habit of keeping a careful eye on their Cokes, lest some less-than-successful Lotharios slip aspirin into their drinks, rendering them wanton and willing. In other areas, kids downed aspirin and Cokes with the firm belief that they'd soon be lightheaded and silly.
What might well be the origin of the "gets you high" belief appeared in the early 1930s. A doctor from Illinois wrote to the Journal of the American Medical Association to warn that teenagers were dissolving aspirin in Coca-Cola to create an "intoxicating" beverage with addictive properties that were as bad as "narcotic habituation." His rant was baseless, and the rumor eventually died down and stayed down for a very long time.
The teen years are a time of experimentation and initiation into the world of adult knowledge and thus mark a bridge between childhood and adulthood. Two things that kids can't do but adults can are drink liquor and engage in sexual activity. It's not surprising that a great many of the whispered snippets of secret knowledge exchanged by teens have to do with one or the other of these activities. To kids of that age everything is a mystery, so bits of lore that enhance the aura of mystery fall upon receptive ears.
Teens stand with one leg still in childhood, a time of lessened responsibility. Actions aren't clearly perceived as having consequences, certainly not in the way they will later in life. A teen will be enchanted by the notion that combining a popular soft drink with an equally popular pain killer will result in his getting drunk or stoned, and he will set out to get himself into that condition via this method just to prove that he can. Never mind that illegal drugs aren't all that hard to come by, and a bottle of liquor even less so (even if one is underage) -- it's the sense of putting one over on the system and not the hoped-for high itself that lies at the heart of this belief's attractiveness.
Another eagerly exchanged bit of secret knowledge tangentially related to the "it gets you high" notion is the idea that drinking beer through a straw will render the imbiber utterly legless. It too lacks any basis in reality. However, the psychomatic effect of such a belief can be startling.
The belief that the Coke-aspirin combination makes for an aphrodisiac leaps straight from the ordinary teen urge to have a way of making the object of his desire feel the same way about him. Adolescence is not just a time of awakening sexual feelings, but also of learning how to deal with romantic rejection. It's only natural to wish for a magic drug that would make the pain of being rejected a thing of the past by doing away with rejection itself, and what more suitable potion could there be than the most American of beverages combined with something that takes pain away?
Far less widespread are the beliefs that the combination will kill whoever drinks it or that it will cure a vicious hangover. The first of the two is easy to explain: teens are always seeing lurking phantom dangers in the oddest things -- the more innocuous, the better. Perhaps the belief that combining two common products will result in a deadly poison is a teen's way of beginning to conceive that the adult world is fraught with dangers. That teens makes up the dangers instead of recognizing the real ones is part of their romantic nature -- it's much more exciting to imagine Godzilla is after you than it is to view a motorcycle through the eyes of someone who has read rider survival statistics.
Finally, as for Coca-Cola and aspirin's being a hangover cure, we come to one bit of the lore which has something to it. Individually, both of these products couldn't help but make things better at a time like that -- the Coke because it helps rehydrate an alcohol-dried body, and the aspirin because it eases the physical suffering of a pounding head. When served up together, the combination packs a much greater pain-killing effect than either of the products would on their own because the caffeine in the soda appears to work to boost the effect of the aspirin. -
Claim: The drug clomipramine has been known to cause orgasms in yawning patients.
Status: True.
Origins: This
1995 article sums it up quite nicely:
Some people prescribed an anti-depressant drug have found an unexpected side effect: they have an orgasm when they yawn. The drug clomipramine usually elevates mood and boosts physical activity and appetite. However, the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry reports four patients on the drug had orgasms on yawning.
"There is a small subset of people who are affected this way," commented Dr. Martin Godfrey, a London GP who has prescribed the drug. "I understand they find this side effect quite pleasant."
One woman who took clomipramine told researchers it cured her depression but she wanted to go on taking it because of its peculiar properties. She found she could experience an orgasm even by deliberate yawning. And a man who had also taken the pills said he was "highly satisfied" with the drug's usefulness.
Around five per cent of clomipramine users report the side effect, though for most people the drug inhibits the ability to reach orgasm. The New Scientist says that the drug's users have been comparing notes on the Internet and speculating on its unusual consequences: people who experience it would presumably seek out the most boring person they could find at parties. -
Claim: Graham crackers were named for a man who believed that unhealthy diets led to sexual excess.
Status: True.
Origins: The
Reverend Sylvester Graham, a Presbyterian minister who became a social reformer and a ferocious advocate of healthful living, is the man who put the 'graham' into the treat we now know and love as graham crackers. Sylvester Graham (1794-1851) believed physical lust was harmful to the body and caused such dire maladies in the sexually overheated as pulmonary consumption, spinal diseases, epilepsy, and insanity, as well as such lesser ailments as headaches and indigestion. He also thought too much lust could result in the early death of offspring, who would have been conceived from weakened stock.
Graham believed a strict vegetarian diet would aid in suppressing carnal urges; to this end, he advocated a regimen devoid of meat and rich in fiber as a way of combating rampant desire. His famed "Graham bread" was fashioned from the coarsely ground wheat flour he espoused and came to bear his name:
The Reverend Sylvester Graham, an eccentric Presbyterian minister from Connecticut, promoted a strict, abstemious died that won him countless converts during America's health craze of the 1820s and 1830s. Convinced that eating meat and fat leads to sinful sexual excess, the good reverend urged total vegetarianism. He also warned that mustard and ketchup cause insanity, urged followers to drink only water, and recommended sleeping with one's windows open regardless of the weather. More reasonably, he touted the merits of a high-fiber diet and promoted the use of homemade unsifted wheat flour instead of refined white flour.1
Although Graham had his adherents during his lifetime, he was mostly regarded as a bit of a nut. Still, there were those who followed his recommendations and happily incarcerated themselves in "Graham boarding houses" in New York and Boston as part of the health craze he inspired. A high-fiber vegetarian diet wasn't the only thing he pushed; he was also strongly against the use of tobacco or alcohol and advocated fresh air, exercise, and a good night's sleep, all excellent components of a healthy lifestyle.
Who actually produced the first 'graham crackers' -- so named because they were made of the unsifted wheat flour that Sylvester Graham promoted -- is the subject of dispute. Some sources assert Graham himself invented the snack in 1829; others claim the graham cracker did not come into being in 1882, thirty-one years after Graham's death. (The latter date appears to be based on the year recipes for graham crackers started appearing in cookbooks.)
Many bakers tried to market the crackers, but it wasn't until 1898 that the National Biscuit Company (now Nabisco) made any real inroads into the market with their Nabisco Graham Crackers product. Nabisco achieved even greater success with their Honey Maid line, introduced in 1925, which boosted the original graham flavor through the addition of honey.
Today's graham crackers are made with bleached white flour, a deviation that would have set Sylvester Graham to spinning in his grave -- he regarded refined flour as one of the world's great dietary evils. -
and btw,i love M&M peanut butter...Mmmmmmm....
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i like all kinds of M&Ms
Originally posted by ratinacage:and btw,i love M&M peanut butter...Mmmmmmm.... -
I always tot that was trueOriginally posted by ratinacage:it causes instant death
but the version i heard was panadol instead of aspirin... -
I love the blue M&Ms...the crispy onesOriginally posted by ratinacage:and btw,i love M&M peanut butter...Mmmmmmm....
wonder wat "properties" will be made up with for them one day... -
er...i always eat my panadol with coke....all the time without fail...no harm so far...doubt got good either la..muahahahha....anyways aspirin is panadol.Originally posted by PaJeRoMiNi Ver 1.0:I always tot that was true
but the version i heard was panadol instead of aspirin... -
trying to get high har dudeOriginally posted by ratinacage:er...i always eat my panadol with coke....