Rotting Fruit Is A Scientifically Proven Aphrodisiac

Many a ladies’ man has claimed to know for sure that some item—green M&Ms, Spanish fly, arugula—is a powerful aphrodisiac, but none of these things have ever actually been proven effective. Until now. Scientists have recently discovered something that’s guaranteed to work…on fruit flies. Grrrr—and, even worse, the magical substance is the smell of ripe and rotting fruit.

It seems this special scent works by turning on pathways in the brains of male fruit flies which encourages them to put on courtship displays and mate. Sadly for these horny male fruit flies, the smell doesn’t work on females. So treating their special lady to a nice night out on an overripe banana is not guaranteed to get them any action.

Well, at least we know now that there’s officially a way to stimulate a brain (a tiny fruit fly one, but still) into getting it on. Perhaps, even though there’s zero proof it works on humans, we ladies should try strategically deploying bowls of fragrant peaches and shrunken grapes (or pre-raisins, as they should be called) around our homes in hopes of luring the objects of our desire into bed with us. Or we could just, you know, ask them.