Spanish Fly, and other shit that doesn’t work…

This probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise, but porn stores are a great example of the adage, “People will buy anything.” This is fine for joke and novelty purchases that customers don’t actually expect to do anything. Where it gets sad, is when (stupid) customers buy products expecting them to accomplish something specific.

The best example of this is Spanish Fly. Cantharidin, the actual chemical obtained from blister beetles and the active ingredient in Spanish Fly, is a strong blister agent and a poison. The concept behind giving a woman Spanish Fly is that the chemical will cause areas in their vagina to swell and that they’ll want to engage in sex to relieve this constant irritation. (Totally hot, right?) People have died from taking real Spanish Fly and thankfully it’s not allowed to be sold for non-medical use in the United States. (That doesn’t mean you can’t get it, but the chance of actually getting the real stuff in a $3.95 bottle of coconut flavored Spaznitch Flie at an adult bookstore is virtually non-existent.)

Knowing this, it surprises me that there are a large number of male customers who regularly purchase our novelty Spanish Fly, insisting that it works beautifully. One regular explained how he just has to add the strawberry flavored Spanish Fly to his special “leg-opener” cocktail (Bacardi 151, Malibu Rum and god knows what else) and his date is certain to put out. My thought is that drunken date rape is what’s really going on here, but he didn’t listen when I tried to explain this.

Another non-effective product we sell a lot of is Herbal V (herbal Viagra.) It’s probably unfair of me to say that this product isn’t effective. It certainly could be and the repeat sales we have of this $79.95 bottle of 30 capsules would suggest that it works. However, the ingredients listed on the back of the bottle are vague at best and I think it’s absolutely insane to take an unregulated herbal supplement.

*Author’s note: I’ll write more about this when I’m telling tales from the next, mini-mall, couple-friendly porn store, where cardiac patients were our most regular herbal-love-concoction customers.

Herbal V could be safe and effective, and these regular customers could have spoken with their doctors before trying this product, but I doubt it. I don’t trust buying condoms from this store and won’t even think about taking the pills in a bottle labeled, “May cause dizziness and increased heart rate. Contact a physician before use.” Let’s be honest, no one wants to die from taking counterfeit Viagra when you could probably get it for a $10 co-pay if you had the balls to ask your doctor for a prescription.

The final product I’d like to mention is the “Not-Yet” desensitizing cream. Unlike the first two products I’ve written about, this cream absolutely does what it says it will. From personal experience, I can attest that rubbing a quarter-sized amount on your penis testicles will cause you to go numb from your bellybutton to your knees. And while it does delay ejaculation (in theory), it also prevents you from feeling any sexual pleasure. You could be dry humping a car door for all the sensation you retain and, despite what you’ve seen in porn videos, repeatedly blindly thumping into your partner will not bring her to new levels of ecstasy.

Worse yet, if the cream hasn’t absorbed by the time you start rubbing against your partner, her genitals will also go completely numb and you’ll find your passionate evening replaced with a late night of watching reruns of Friends.

Please know; I share because I care.

The moral of this story is that no one should look to a porn store to purchase anything medically effective. These things are novelties and they help you climax, fantastic, but don’t rely on them. With current medical technology, you should be talking to your doctor about your inability to achieve erection. Your body must be a temple before it can be an amusement park and sexual side-effects are usually a sign that something else in your body is not operating efficiently.

Why people seem to be more comfortable discussing their sexual shortcomings with the slob behind the pipe-counter than with their doctor is beyond me, but it keeps happening. All I can do is be honest when they ask questions:

Customer – “Do these horny goat weed pills actually do anything?”

Me – “No.”

Customer – “I’ll take 5 packages.”

Me – *Facepalm