When I read an article about special orgasmic mushrooms, I was sure it was #FakeNews. Especially when the source was an article from the international journal of medicinal mushrooms. There was no way that was a real thing. Turns out I was wrong.
Turns out, at least according to Wikipedia, there really is an international journal of medicinal mushrooms and it’s been in print since 1999. Who knew? Apparently, it comes out once a year.
In the article written by John C. Holliday and Noah Soule, of Next Laboratories from Kula, Hawaii and Aloha Medicinals, from Puunene, Hawaii, women who smell this newly found species of mushroom have spontaneous orgasms.
On the island of Hawaii in the Central Pacific, there has long been the rumor of a bright orange colored mushroom with peculiar properties.
Found growing only on recent lava flows approximately 600-I0,000 years old, this variety of mushroom has the reputation of being a potent female aphrodisiac when smelled.
In this study the morphology and chemistry of this unnamed Dictyophora species is described, along with the result of a smell test conducted on volunteer participants, showing that there arc significant sexual arousal characteristics present in the fetid odor of this unique mushroom.
Indeed, nearly half of the female test subjects experienced spontaneous orgasms while smelling this mushroom.
These results suggest that the hormone-like compounds present in the volatile portion of the spore mass may have some similarity to human neurotransmitters released during sexual encounters.
Sounds good so far, right?
Well, it turns out I wasn’t the only skeptic. A reporter from Discover magazine had the same reservations that I did. They hunted down this John Holliday from the article who apparently still had some connection to the Aloha Medicians company.
“Immediately, Holliday clamped up. “Unfortunately, I was employed by a major pharmaceutical company when we did this work, and they are still pursuing the active compounds as a drug. I am under a pretty strict NDA [non-disclosure agreement], so, unfortunately, I am unable to answer your questions regarding this line of inquiry,” he wrote back.”
It turns out there may be something to the story but not as easy to find as one might think. What we learned is the mushroom was a fungus that smelled like semen. The researchers did their best to find it but int he end all they found was the story was probably 100% bogus. There is no mushroom in Hawaii that gives women orgasms just by smelling it.
The Mushroom Journal later proved that the whole thing was a fake in their own article and with their own research.
In 2001, while employed by Next Labs in Hawaii, a “wholly owned subsidiary of a pharmaceutical giant,” John Holliday and Noah Soule published a rather sketchy study in an obscure journal — the Journal of International Medicinal Mushrooms (Holliday, 2015). Holliday is a former editor of that journal.
So there you have it. There is no orgasm mushroom.
Just goes to show how easy it is to spread #FakeNews. Hundreds of thousands of people have now read the story and to this day are still spreading it as if it were real. It’s not.
4 Responses
“Yes, that’s it—zombie spooge! That’s what it smelled like. If anyone’s semen smells like that mushroom, then they need to see a doctor, stat.”
What a fitting reward for reading a sourced article on Halloween.
Was this article published on or near April Fools Day? This sounds like an April Fools Day joke to me. Even if that is true this is one sick joke. Also, who the fuck wants a mushroom that smells like (I will assume) male semen? That isn’t an aphrodisiac, that is a turn-off — I am pretty sure especially to most of the women that have tried blowing a guy and having to swallow the stuff! Thanks to Kelli for publicizing that this aphrodisiac mushroom doesn’t exist and I bet this “scholarly” publication isn’t nearly as “scholarly” as what any sophomore at university would deal with while writing research papers.
As someone from the Bay Area, I can confirm that there are many medical and scientific professionals circling the barely and newly opening floodgates of research monies that are starting to become available for legitimate scientific research in the area of psychoactive fungi. The existence of this journal would not seem out of line, given how steadily bodies of research have been building in this area.
That said, it sounds like this journal might have been a sham. I would say, that if we are to be skeptical, as we should be until we verify odd stories, perhaps the “it’s not true” case can be clearly documented as well. I don’t mean to be overly critical Kelli, but “The Mushroom Journal later proved that the whole thing was a fake in their own article and with their own research.” feels a bit like handwaving. Maybe a quote, or a specific issue reference (month, year) might be nice.