Why the Father of Sadism harvested poison from this bird

Hint: it’s got to do with a stronger erection!!

The other day, we learned about the Spur-winged Goose, and how they are one of the few poisonous birds in the world. Read more about it here!

Image credit: Twitter user @2wsphotography.

Learning about toxins and poisonous birds is already super fun and interesting

But for today’s article, we’re learning even MORE interesting fun facts. This time, we’re going back in history and reading about how Mr. BDSM himself harvested the toxins from these birds to use in his freaky little sex parties!

But first! Let’s learn about the poison and how it came to be.

Spur-winged Geese are testament to the saying, “you are what you eat”!

Found in wetlands throughout sub-Saharan Africa, these geese love eating tiny little toxic beetles called Blister Beetles, which produce a toxin called cantharidin. This toxin is a blistering agent (it causes your skin to blister) in large doses.

But!

Somehow or other, humans learnt that if you take small does of cantharidin and mix it with other ingredients, this toxin can be very, very useful.

For example, when mixed with salicylic acid - a holy grail product of the Korean skincare fanatics - cantharidin can be used to clear warts and skin ailments.

The toxin that Spur-winged Geese ingest can, in small doses, also be used as an aphrodisiac!!!! Ooooh! (Aka it makes your peepee bigger).

In nature, the toxin cantharidin is created by the male blister beetle and is given as a sexy-time gift to the female blister beetle during copulation.

Its purpose? For the female to use to protect her eggs.

Image credit: Morning Chores. This is one of the thousands of different kinds of blister beetles, found all over the world. Blister beetles all have long, soft, narrow bodies with leathery looking wings. Some are brightly colored with the yellows and reds that identify them as poisonous. However, others are black, gray, or otherwise dull in color and appearance.

If a predator bites into a blister beetle egg, it learns to never do it again, because cantharidin causes terribly painful blisters - and it must be much worse in the mouth…

If a human ingests a small enough dose of it, though, cantharidin can cause a burning sensation of the urinary tract that can either provoke an erection or cause an existing erection to last longer.

(So they say, anyway... I wouldn’t know, because I don’t have a peepee and I’ve never made my boyfriend eat poison…)

This effect is responsible for cantharidin’s historical reputation as an aphrodisiac that dates back all the way to ancient Roman times.

Some gossip from the ancient times:

• Augustus Caesar’s (the first Roman emperor and the founder of the Roman empire) wife Livia supposedly slipped ground beetles into food to entice men into indiscretions for which they could be blackmailed.

• There are also accounts of Louis XIV’s (the King of France in the 1640s) lust for women being aided by cantharidin. Aka he took this poison so he could bang these women for longer periods I guess.

• According to some accounts, blister beetle extract was one of the components in Giulia Tofana’s infamous “widow-maker” poison in the 17th century. Tofana was an Italian professional poisoner, and she sold a poison called Aqua Tofana to women who wanted to murder their abusive husbands. Girl boss!

• The most famous proponent of this toxin as a sexual stimulant was the notorious Marquis de Sade, aka Mr. BDSM himself!

Image credit: ThoughCo. This is a modern-day illustration of Marquis de Sade. There are a LOT of NSFW illustrations of him being jerked off so be careful when you search for images of this guy! Omg!

Let’s learn all about it.

The sexual term sadism - the tendency to derive sexual pleasure from inflicting pain on others - was actually named for the Marquis de Sade, a French nobleman and writer who was born in 1740.

As a writer, he is most famous for his erotic works of sexual freedom - aka historical smut / word porn / hentai!!!

However, Sade’s work, and sexual fantasies, are borderline crazy. He particularly emphasised on violence, suffering, anal sex (which he calls sodomy), child rape, crime, and blasphemy against Christianity. Plus, many of the characters in his works are teenagers or adolescents.

As part of his freaky little sex parties, the Marquis de Sade is said to have given prostitutes cantharidin-laced pastilles to “set them on fire” (in a sexual way).

It did set them on fire, kinda - but instead of it being the fire of desire, it was the fire of… a poisoned stomach…

Reports state that the poison he fed them gave the prostitutes burning abdominal pain, and even almost caused two particular women to die.

The Marquis and his valet were accused of poisoning the women and quickly fled to Italy. The two men were sentenced to death in absentia, but managed to wriggle their way out of their punishment in the end.

It’s honestly a crazy story. I’ve kept the actions of the Marquis de Sade as PG as I could for today’s article, but you are welcome to Google more about him if you want to learn about how he forcibly held five young women and one man hostage in his chateau while forcing them to commit various sexual acts for six weeks… and more. Eeks!

Because of the myth of the aphrodisiac effect, various varieties of this toxin is sold under the name “Spanish Fly” and is available for purchase on the web, even today!!!

It is unlikely they actually contain any cantharidin, though, which of course is a good thing given the danger of the actual compound.

Mostly they are herbal concoctions based on cayenne pepper extract that will produce a mild burning sensation - mostly in your wallet, and not your peepee.

It is pseudo-science at its best and I dare say it won’t work as an aphrodisiac. I suppose if you have nothing to lose and want to try it out, go ahead. I don’t think you’ll die or anything! (Don’t quote me on this)

In Germany, even today, homeopathic remedies based on cantharidin are available for the treatment of urinary tract infections. Generally, though, these concoctions won’t cause any harm because homeopathic remedies are usually diluted to an extent where either none or a trivial amount of the original substance remains.

For the Spur-winged Geese, though, it doesn’t seem as if they use this toxin for anything sexual in nature. It’s just a byproduct of their diet of blister beetles!

Image credit: Kidadl. Spur-winged Goose in flight. They are named the spurs on their wings, which the males use to fight each other for the right to mate during the breeding season. Females have spurs as well, but they are smaller and not as sharp as the males’ spurs. These spurs are very sharp and can be poisonous. The blister beetles that the spur-winged goose loves to eat are very poisonous. This poison is stored by the geese in their bodies. This means that spur-winged goose meat can kill people who eat it. The poison is also stored in their wing spurs, making them that much deadlier.

The Spur-winged Goose is most often found in open grasslands with lakes, seasonal pools, rivers, swamps and river deltas in Sub-saharan Africa, and so are the blister beetles.

Just so we end the article with some bird fun facts (no more sexilicious fun facts on the father of sadism), Spur-winged Geese are the largest African waterfowl and are, on average, the world's largest wild "goose” - although they are not actual geese, and are more closely related to another group of birds called the shelduck.

Image credit: Holmien Birding Safaris. Spur-winged Geese are mainly black, with a white face and large white wing patches. The long legs are pinkish red in colour. The male differs from the female, not only in size, but also in having a larger red facial patch extending back from the red bill, and a knob at the base of the upper mandible.

That’s all for today’s article. So salacious!! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you’re keen on sharing some sexilicious fun facts with your friends, why not share today’s article?