‘Sex in a Spray’ Draws Concerns About an ‘Age of McNookie’

Posted on Apr 23, 2006

PT-141, a nasal spray that is perhaps the world’s first legitimate aphrodisiac, may hit the market in under three years. The Observer wonders whether such a “sure thing” will trivialize the emotional aspect of relationships.

Observer:

Horn of rhinoceros. Penis of tiger. Root of sea holly. Husk of the emerald-green blister beetle known as the Spanish fly. So colourful and exotic is the list of substances that have been claimed to heighten sexual appetite that it is hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment on first beholding the latest entry - a small, white plastic nasal inhaler containing an odourless, colourless synthetic chemical called PT-141. Plain as it is, however, there is one thing that distinguishes PT-141 from the 4,000 years’ worth of recorded medicinal aphrodisiacs that precede it: this one actually works.

And it could reach the market in as little as three years. The full range of possible risks and side effects has yet to be determined, but already this much is known: a dose of PT-141 results, in most cases, in a stirring in the loins in as little as 15 minutes. Women, according to one set of results, feel ‘genital warmth, tingling and throbbing’, not to mention ‘a strong desire to have sex’.

Among men who have been tested with the drug more extensively, the data set is richer: ‘With PT-141, you feel good,’ reported anonymous patient 007: ‘not only sexually aroused, you feel younger and more energetic.’ According to another patient, ‘It helped the libido. So you have the urge and the desire...’ Tales of pharmaceutically induced sexual prowess among 58-year-olds are common enough in the age of the Little Blue Pill, but they don’t typically involve quite so urgent a repertoire. Or, as patient 128 put it: ‘My wife knows. She can tell the difference between Viagra and PT-141.’

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