Worldbuilding 203: Love Potions and Aphrodisiacs

Greetings and surplice! Despite my love for maxi-dresses, I am not going to wear those. Anyway, welcome to another blogpost! This one is being written by me and my beloved sister Lady Verbosa, still known also as Anne. Some might call today’s topic a poison, to continue what we did last fortnight; I’d definitely say I was poisoned if I had one against my will… What is today's topic, Anne?

(Anne:) This exciting Halloween special, we’re looking at a potion that twists the mind and changes the heart, that can change the very way one looks and feels… we’re looking, of course, at love potions and aphrodisiacs.

Yeah, I know that would have been simpler if I had left off aphrodisiacs, but if you’re looking at things that make people fall in love, you really can’t.

Definition

(Vivian:) How would one define something so nebulous? Well, we’ve done it before and we can do it again!

(Anne:) First up, of course…

(Vivian:) Don’t steal my thing!

A love potion is usually a liquid that increases the victim’s romantic attraction to an individual.

An important distinction to notice here is that the target of said romantic attraction may not be the one who tries to use the love potion. Which is great for stories. Fine, do your thing now, Anne!

(Anne:) When you think about love, you need to keep in mind that it has many dimensions. Love potions deal with romantic attraction, but sometimes you need a little fire and pizzaz, a little more action… Thus, we also have aphrodisiacs.

An aphrodisiac is usually a liquid that increases the victim’s sexual attraction to an individual.

(Vivian:) Actually, I’ll change that.

An aphrodisiac is usually a liquid that increases a victim's momentary lust.

What is the difference? I would say the difference is that in Anne’s, it is focused and can be targeted, but in most instances I’ve seen, the effect one sees is that one’s sexual desires just increases, not to any specific individual… but if you are really horny, you will go for whoever is nearest.

Potential problems with raising attraction

(Anne:) These two potions have been around for a long time and will continue to soak into stories of all kinds. For much of history, they were just accepted as good and normal in stories, but today’s audiences tend to value something previous generations did not: consent.

What is consent? (Is Vivian going to steal this from me?) Guess not! Well, I’m going to give you my definition, which is fairly simple, and then I know Vivian will jump in with hers. As you read these, see if you can find where and why consent runs up against the core concepts of love potions and aphrodisiacs. 

Anne’s definition of consent:

A free and willing agreement to something after learning all relevant information about the action in question

(Vivian:) It is a good start, but I much prefer

Consent is the voluntary agreement to something, given by a person who fully understands the information provided, can comprehend the potential future consequences, has been given sufficient information, and is free from duress or coercion.

You can learn relevant information, but if you cannot understand it and the consequences, is it really consent then? I would say not, that is why we have certain classes of people and contexts that are entirely unable to give consent at any and every time. And it is also why people under the influence are generally not considered able to give consent…. oh, under an influence like a love potion!

(Anne:) And that’s a huge issue with both of these “poisons.” They remove a person’s ability to consent, and they put them in a position where consent would be important - either suddenly falling for someone, or suddenly wanting to do anyone in their vicinity.

(Vivian:) I’d actually say that… you know what?

Consent removal vs emotional enhancement

(Vivian:) A distinction I like to make in this is the difference between consent removal and emotional enhancement. Most commonly, a love potion is a consent remover because it is someone else, usually the potion producer, who decides who you fall in love with, and you have no choice in the matter.

You’ll be head over heels, which is such a weird saying, and too infatuated to really say or think anything. An emotional enhancer, on the other hand, does as the name suggests: it enhances an existing emotion. If you go back and look at Anne’s vs my definition of an aphrodisiac, you will see that Anne’s definition is very similar to the love potion and is another consent remover.

Mine is an emotional enhancer. It takes a pre-existing emotion, general background arousal that all allosexual, we’re progressive here, people have, and then ramps it up to not 11, but 21 instead.

(Anne:) I would argue that if someone slips you an aphrodisiac in a situation where there’s only one person present, then even if you aren’t attracted to that person, you’ll likely have sex with them. I would call that a consent remover.

(Vivian:) And a knife is a murder weapon if you ram it into someone’s chest, but that doesn’t make it like a gun where its only purpose is to murder people.

(Anne:) Exactly! Wait. Nope, I’m holding with my analysis, mostly because it isn’t rare to see it used like that. However, it’s perfectly possible to use aphrodisiacs in a totally normal way. The boundaries of consent are blurry because you didn’t consent to having lust, but it’s possible for you to still have agency.

(Vivian:) As Anne cannot attest, allosexuals usually have times in their lives where they are really horny for someone and still choose not to sleep with them.

(Anne:) Nope, can’t say I understand that, seeing as I’m asexual. 

Failures of Lovephrodesiacs

(Vivian:) I am making this a word now! So, how can they fail in a hilarious way?

Well, as I hinted at earlier, it is to someone…but what if, for the sake of argument, the Evil Witch Vivian wants to make a man fall for her, she makes a love potion and slips it into a drink, thinking the man she wants will fall for her…except he falls for someone else!

(Anne:) Or maybe a young humble man goes to the Evil Witch Vivian asking for a love potion and giving her a lock of his beloved’s hair, but when he slips his beloved the potion, nothing happens - because it was actually the hair of the horse she was riding at the time!

(Vivian:) The classical trying to control by having the DNA of someone, and it turns out to be an animal. What other ways can it fail? Well… what if Evil Witch Vivian accidentally drinks her own love potion? Maybe she turns into Narcissus then and is madly in love with herself.

(Anne:) And as that starts to lead us, don’t forget that we started this post framing these as poisons, because they can be, if you don’t use them well. Potions in general tend to be finicky, though it depends on the story, and there are usually strict instructions with lovephrodesiacs that, if not followed, could have deadly consequences. Potions can be poisons, whether love or horniness, or any emotion is tied to them. 

We mentioned in our definitions that both of these are usually liquids, and that’s because, for the most part, they need to get inside the target without the target knowing. Liquids tend to be an easy one to get into a person, after all. Just a few drops in their drink, stir it in their soup, drip it into their ears–okay, maybe not that last one!

(Vivian:) Though it would be absolutely hilarious if the lovephrodesiac is in fact a powder; Evil Witch Vivian tries to blow it in the face of the guy she wants, and the wind instantly turns and splashes it in her face instead.

(Anne:) Yeah, powder definitely has its benefits… but not when it’s windy… But while liquid and powder are the most common, it can be almost anything. A necklace, a rock, anything. And it can function in any way, whether the target consumes it, wears it, sees it, hears it, smells it–so many amazing possibilities when it comes to how you get the lovephrodesiac to the target.

Just don’t drop your love rock on the toe of your worst enemy!

Mini-Practicum: Pink

(Vivian:) As many of you, my beloved readers, might know, Anne and I like doing unethical, or ethically questionably, things except in an ethical way. Look at Belusakirakani, Circus Stellaris,

and the megacorp TCCMC…I am sure we’ve done more. ANNE? (Anne is away right now, please leave a message at the tone)

Anyway, similarly, I have done one of a lovephrodesiac! It is actually just a plain old aphrodisiac and doesn’t interfere with actual love feelings, but how does it work? As the title entails, it is called “pink”. Just plain old pink. It comes from my Limaces–short version of what they are, a slug-based hermaphrodic humanoid species that have 14 distinct colours, or which they can have up to 2, that defines a lot of the characteristics and personalities of the limax.

A quirk of the limaces is that for all intents and purposes, they are entirely asexual. As in, they have literally zero lust for any other life form. So the question is then, if they are hermaphroditic and asexual, do they brok themselves and have children? Of course not, you silly goose! That is…incest? Autoincest? Anyway, no, they reproduce sexually like most life forms. But how then if they don’t want to have sex with each other ever?

That is the thing, they don’t feel lust, but they can still want it, they just don’t feel that lust feeling. And to rectify this slight issue, the pink limaces come to the issue! 

(Anne:) Pink limaces are… special. They may not be the brightest bulb, but they’re absolutely treasured given their importance in reproduction.

(Vivian:) That they are! They secrete a liquidy substance that is, as the name suggests, pink in colour and… it is the most potent aphrodisiac in all of known space. And that is how limaces get horny. They have to either bump into a pink limax or actively get the pink slime, known simply as pink, to engage in it with whoever their chosen partner is… And yeah, pink limaces are known for not being the brightest, but they are fully functional members of society… You’d just find it extremely surprising if a pink limax without green as their second color has a degree of any kind that doesn’t involve sex.

So why is this ethical? Well, for starters, it is an emotion enhancer. Pink will make you horny, and I mean REALLY horny, imagine the horniest you’ve ever been and take it times about 100 and we reach where it is. It will be the best sex you allosexuals have ever had! See why it is so sought after in known space? 

Anyway, yeah, it will make you dang horny. But you are still fully capable of NOT engaging in sex. Will it be unpleasant? Yeah… it is not fun being that horny and not being able to relieve yourself, but you still have that possibility.

On top of this agency being intact, pink is, in fact, not possible to use for extended periods of time. If you keep using it, it loses its effect. Like any other drug, the more you use, the more you get used to it. Fortunately, if you quit pink, you don’t have any bad effects beyond that you will spend months, maybe years, just not feeling horny. Which is kind of bad, but not the worst.

But additional part to why I would say this is ethical is this: It does not override your sexuality. You cannot be made to be horny for people you would not ordinarily be attracted to. Which actually means that actual asexual people, like Anne, are in one way unaffected. She will not under any circumstances feel lust for anyone else, despite being under the influence of pink… She will still get horny, but that is a one-person business then if she so chooses. And to this we can add: it does not make you pick any specific person. You might be really horny… but you might sod off to sleep with someone else that you find more desirable than the person that spiked your drink.

(Anne:) One other thing that’s usually the case with pink is that it’s consensual. A limax couple might seek it out. A limax might try to find it for a committed partner. Now, is it always consensual? Well, not in the initial taking of it. If it’s done without someone’s knowledge, then it’s done without their consent, as seen in our definitions above. So pink is usually consensual, sometimes not, but even when it's not, it’s a lovephrodesiac done in an ethical way.

(Vivian:) Yepp. As you can see, this is why it is highly sought after in known space, but what Anne brought up is also why it is heavily regulated by the Dominion, the star-nation where most limaces reside. And the Dominion is immensely protective of all their pink citizens. It might take 3 pink limaces to match a potato, but they are treated with dignity, love, and you better pray to whatever deity you believe in if you mess with their pink citizens and try to abuse them to get your hands on pink because the Dominion will not hold back.

Summa Summarum

(Anne:) So. Love potions. Aphrodisiacs. Pink. Are these poisons? Well, they have their harmful side. They mess with consent and can go quite wrong for characters. In some ways, it’s a cheat in storytelling. Don’t want to build up a relationship? Use a love potion! 

So poison? For the purposes of this being part of our series on poisons this Spooky month, I say AYE!

(Vivian:) And unless you want to actually deal with the ethical and moral issues of lovephrodesiacs, don’t do them the plain old ways. But as I hope Anne and I have proven time and time again, you can do it in interesting ethical ways if you focus on what you want, why you want it, and then figure out how to deal with the immoral stuff in an ethical way.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

(Anne:) Happy Spooky Day!