Among other foods, they are addicted to garlic, which they consume in large quantities, ginger, and onion, all of which have aphrodisiac properties.
There are other erotogenic means, contrivances and manipulative devices, mentioned in Hindu manuals, that are designed for ithyphallic inducements.
The Orient has always been a rich source for erotic material. Formal manuals, anthologies, poetry all stress amatory concepts, erotic situations, amorous encounters. In 1907 the Mercure de France published an Anthologie de L’Amour Asiatique, by a certain Thalasso. It ranges over many countries of the Asiatic continent, describing the traits and temperaments of the women of these countries from an amatory viewpoint. The author quotes a Georgian popular song, that contains the essence of the anthology. It is that the purpose of every man, every husband, should be to devise varying amatory pleasures. He should know how to renew the enjoyments of Aphrodite. He should be skilled in avoiding monotony and satiety. Every woman of every country has her own peculiarities, her own coyness, her own aggressiveness. The women of Egypt, he says, are promiscuous, though beautiful. All the coquettish arts are known to Persian women. The Abyssinians are slim and well-formed and appealing in looks. The women of the Hedjaz are apart; they maintain their honor and their modesty, and there are no harlots among them. In Constantinople all the women, in pulchritude, resemble Venus, but they are of varying degrees of chastity. Circassian women are like the moon. Georgian women are very tender-hearted, and persistent pleas will win the day with them.
The Orient is always prepared to experiment with strange objects, unique devices, complicated contraptions, protracted and difficult treatments, all for the ultimate purpose of recovering the libido, or protracting the amatory span, or maintaining full and effectual vigor.
Take, for instance, a man’s molar tooth: and the bone of a lapwing’s left wing. Place in a purse, under the woman’s pillow. Tell her of your action. The result, presumably by means of the implied sympathetic magic, will be very favorable.
A plant belonging in the satyrion species, called Orchis Morio, that is native to the South East of Europe, particularly in the area near Istanbul, is used in Turkey as an excitant.