Holliday JC, Soule N. (2001). “Spontaneous female orgasms triggered by smell of a newly found tropical Dictyphora species”. International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms3 (2-3): 162-7. doi:10.1615/intjmedmushr.v3.i2-3.790. ISSN1521-9437.
Synopsis: This paper reports that 6/16 women tested had orgasms sniffing volcanic variant of a certain fresh volcanic mushroom; the other 10 had physiologic signs of arousal. 20/20 men tested found the smell disgusting.
TBH, I don’t personally put much faith in this paper, but I thought you’d all enjoy reading about the report. I’d like to post more, but the website seems to be on-and-off, so I can’t confirm my recollection of the details.
As far as I know (I’m no mycologist), Phallus indusiatus is the current name for this species. It was variously reassigned from genus Phallus to newly created genera like Dictyophora (the genus name used in the article) and Hymenphallus in the 1800, but both genera are now just considered part of genus Phallus.
Note that this result is for a variant that sprouts near volcanic flows in Hawaii, not the more common (but still rare) edible form found in southern Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Australia, which was said to be particular favorite of the Qing dynasty Empress Dowager Cixi
They say that that kind of species is in fact also being used as an aphrodisiac (Phallus indusiatus), so there is some truth in the fact that it can be considered “orgasmic”.
So the special specie mushroom is potential to be developed into a sex driver for female. but the exact chemical working in the process should be identified by drug screening or related process to determine the safety.
As a follow-up, here’s an account of one science-trained woman’s search for the reported mushroom in Hawai’i, as well as an exploration of the cultural and historic background.
Spoiler: her results were not promising, but while she did find SOME species of Dyctyophora in a setting similar to what was described, there was a lot of fuzziness and downright contradiction in what she was told. The candidate mushroom was not found in patches of soil surrounded by lava flow, as usually reported, but rather was found in a damp mulchy patch deep in a forest patch (a typical site for any species of Dyctyphora), based on a brief aside by the researcher who wrote the paper – after he finished describing the canonical “inhospitable” site for his particular mushroom.
There is no particular reason to believe that she found the mysterious (sub)species of Dyctyophora withthe reported erotic effect. The specimen she photographed/tested was fairly typical of Dyctophora cinnanbarina, an already well-known/studied species.
Many of the facts, lore and circumstances of the original paper, as well as its background sources and author’s intentions are shown to be murky.
It’s all very X-files. Like Agent Fox Mulder, “we want to believe”, but “the proof (if any) is out there”. There’s no strong data against it either (especially if the sample is the wrong species), though much of the ethnographic background seems dubious.
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