Are Dates The New Wonder Food For Men Who've Lost Their Interest In Sex?
Attention, please!
weheartit I don't tend to believe in food as aphrodisiacs, and you know what? Neither do, like, people who actually have degrees in sorting that kind of stuff out.
Scientists have pretty much shot down the notion that some magical combination of oysters and snake tails will fix a medically malfunctioning libido.
Are there foods that promote healthy circulation? Sure!
Does maintaining an overall heart-healthy diet help people feel better overall? Yes! That is a real thing!
Will eating more fruits and vegetables make your body healthier, and thus, more capable of having better sex? Sure!
But I have a hard time believing that if I eat three bars of dark chocolate it will do anything other than make me feel severely nauseated, hyper, and in desperate need of a ladies room.
However, nothing about what I think or feel nor the opinions of the medical and scientific communities seem able to stop the tide of "newly discovered and natural" libido boosters smacking us all in the face, particularly those of us who write about sex on the Internet for a living.
Take, for example, the case of dates.
I am not, tragically, discussing those potentially romantic encounters that typically feature dinner and a movie, hopefully, followed by orgasms.
I'm talking about the food. You know, Indiana Jones? The dead monkey? "Bad dates?"
Anyhoo... As you've probably heard, dates are great for helping with a variety of medical issues.
For example, if you are constipated, dates help to get things moving. Which makes the fact that some people now claim dates are good for bolstering the male libido even more troublesome.
I mean, who cares how constantly ready to go he is if he's also, well, constantly ready to go?
According to Dr. Aminu Kazeem, identified as a "sexual health therapist" working at the Energy for Sex Clinic in Lagos, Nigeria:
“Eating dates will promote sperm quality and quantity as it is one of the best natural fruits used for male fertility. It also increases the size of testes in men and the size of breast in women. Consuming the fruit can help to treat sexual disorders because it is a natural aphrodisiac.”
Now, far be for it for me to shoot down a licensed medical professional, but if a guy works at a place in Nigeria called Energy For Sex Clinic I trust him about as far as I can throw him, and because I didn't want to send people to the grocery store in search of dates to stuff down men's throats without feeling pretty solid about that recommendation, I took it upon myself to do some additional research on the subject.
The top link that appeared in my Google search for "dates fruit libido" was an article on a website called Alternative Daily.
Again, it's cool to look for alternatives, but I was looking for facts. The article does cite a study conducted in 2006 at Shiraz University in Iran, stating that, "Lead researcher, Dr. Soghra Bahmanpour, found that the high levels of estradiol and flavonoid components increased sperm count and motility. In addition, dates promote an increase in male testes size and weight."
However, actually reading the study presented as evidence brought to light that Dr. Bahmanpour's conclusion that "date palm pollen seems to cure male infertility" is based on having tested the sperm and testes belonging to "fifty sexually mature 6-8 weeks-old male Sprague-Dawley rats."
So... not a huge sample size, and one that cannot be reliably applied to human males (despite the two sometimes being alleged to share behavioral patterns).
But I digress...
So, yeah, I couldn't find a whole lot of scientific data to back up the theory connecting dates and improved human male libido.
But frankly, in a world where suspicious sexual supplements can be picked up at any truck stop, dates seem like a miracle drug, if your man is struggling with his libido and wants to try eating a lot of dates to change that, more power to him.
However, he might want to also to evaluate other aspects of his life like his diet, his mental health, and his testosterone levels.
Rebecca Jane Stokes is a sex, humor and lifestyle writer living in Brooklyn, New York with her cat, Batman. She hosts the sex, love, and dating advice show, Becca After Dark on YourTango's Facebook Page every Tuesday and Thursday at 10:20 pm Eastern. For more of her work, check out her Tumblr.