Apropos of reading how boiled tiger bones are used as a ‘traditional aphrodisiac’ in China, along with pangolin blood, bear teeth, rhino horns and Christ knows what else.
My question is this - instead of paying through the nose for bottles of orphan tears or whatever why the balls don’t they just take the little blue pill, which both exists and is a thing? Is it something particular to the culture of a specific region, the placebo effect being just as good as the real thing, or what?
First, Viagra isn’t an aphrodisiac.
Second, it hasn’t been around very long, compared to the alternatives you mentioned. You know, tradition.
And third, Viagra doesn’t work for everyone. Not that those other things do.
Well, no, Viagra isn’t actually an aphrodisiac, but then, neither is rhino’s horn or tiger balls purported to be one. What Viagra is, and what those other substances purport to being, is a potency aid: They help a man to get and maintain an erection. In other words, what rhino’s horn and tiger balls are claimed to do, Viagra actually does, and it’s probably cheaper and certainly less likely to get you into legal trouble.
And while Viagra might not work for everyone, there are a number of other potency aids on the market now that legitimately work, and even if there are a few men for which none of the legitimate medicines work, that would be way too few to maintain a real market for the endangered-animals ones.
I’ve read they do. I was reading an article about endangered rhinos and it said that the demand for rhino horns has significantly decreased. They specifically attributed this to the development of drugs like Viagra which are reducing the demand for folk cures.
It’s not just used as an aphrodisiac or for erectile dysfunction. There are many other claimed benefits. For example, rhino horns are sold as a cancer cure in Vietnam.
It’s not really about rhino horn or tiger balm, it’s maintaining the belief in traditional medicines when the option exists for modern western medicines. Made worse when the traditional medicines are harmful to an endangered species or harmful in themselves to the taker.
I used to work for a Chinese S.O.E so had significant exposure to mainland Chinese folks of a whole variety of walks of life. This place had a significant health risk of asbestos - i was chatting to one of the chinese gentlemen one day - a very smart, very knowledgeable electrical engineer - about the asbestos risk. He was absolutely convinced that he knew of a traditional chinese medicine, a soup in fact, which would prevent him getting asbestosis or mesothelioma. I told him he was being ridiculous, but he was utterly convinced. In trying to fight this mans ignorance, you are battling against a long and deep traditionally held cultural belief that their medicine systems are equally valid to modern western ones. He couldnt explain how the soup would work - but can you explain how viagra works, other than in the most general terms? I can’t.
So whilst i disagree with these treatments in general, I can relate to why a segment of the population still believes in them. Large swathes of the population have only been modernised in the last 2 decades - many more still not even yet. It will be much time before traditional beliefs are replaced entirely, even if they are damaging in the interim
As Chronos inferred with, I was using ‘aphrodisiac’ rather euphemistically, hence the inverted commas, should have made that more clear I guess.
Ah, well that’s some good news, restores a bit of faith in humanity.
…and there it goes. Seriously, this is some Saturday morning cartoon supervillainry type shit going on. “We’ll kill endangered species then sell the remains to the terminally ill as a cure, bwah ha ha!”
On preview; thanks to Richox, seems like it’s a small aspect of a big problem.
Meanwhile and in a sort of mirror image scenario, I regularly read in my local paper that the Consumer Protection department has raided a supply of “Chinese Natural Herbal Supplements” that rather than, or on top of, the supposed exotic herb blend to help you regain “vigor”, actually DO contain sildenafil or its analogues and random filler. All of it, spurious herb(s), real active ingredient, filler, with the usually splendid Chinese quality control of course.
Though allopathic medicine pharmaceuticals are spreading into these societies, as mentioned above there is a strong cultural component involved: the synthetic medications do not pretend to work by harmonizing and channelling the flow of your Qi in the direction of greater health and longevity, so people will still want products [that are claimed] to do that* on top of* the chemical pharmaceutics.
Given the huge problem China has with counterfeiting, I’d not be surprised to learn that the vast majority of Viagra sold through apparently legit channels in China is in fact inert counterfeit.
Somebody trying that stuff would quickly get the idea that Viagra doesn’t work any better than rhino horn. Coupled with the deep-seated cultural preference for traditional medicine mentioned above, it’d be easy for 3 billion Chinese to conclude Viagra is a Western joke.
Of course, a lot of the rhino horn is probably counterfeit, too.
Of course here in the west we have homeopathy, copper and magnet bracelets to heal arthritis, laetril, ear candles, aromatherapy, colloidal silver, etc., etc.
But along the same lines I am highly surprised that the Chinese who traffic in exotic illegal remedies don’t just pass off fakes. Its certainly got to be easier to manufacture something that you could pass off as white rhino horn than to actually hunt down one of the few remaining white rhinos. Its not like the customer could tell the difference.
Just a note here that “traditional Chinese medicine” is by definition allopathic - in other words, it (like that Evil Western Medicine) is intended to produce effects in opposition to/incompatible with those produced by disease.
Also, evidence-based pharmaceuticals and other treatments have extensively replaced TCM in China. The Chinese have evolved way past “take two pinches of powdered goat testes and call me in the morning”.