![\"Adult](\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/verycherry\/files\/2015\/01\/adult-pills1.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"Adults](\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/verycherry\/files\/2015\/01\/adult-pills2.jpg\")
<\/a>\nSexual herbal pills at Hustler Hollywood in West Hollywood, CA<\/h6>\n
If you’ve set foot inside a gas station convenience store in the United States, you may have seen\u00a0packets and bottles of herbal pills similar to the ones in the above photos. At first, we looked\u00a0at the packaging just to see what they were claiming. Neither of us felt the need for these products, and\u00a0we\u00a0wouldn’t\u00a0buy them\u00a0without first looking up their\u00a0effectiveness from reliable sources if we did. We’re both skeptics\u00a0and sexual claims aren’t excluded from our fact checking.\u00a0But before we had\u00a0the chance to do that, a store\u00a0employee walked over and started talking about how good the product we were looking at\u00a0was, or how we should buy another concoction instead of the one\u00a0we\u00a0had in our hands.<\/p>\n
Out of the dozens of pills on display, I only saw two\u00a0that were supposed to be taken by\u00a0women. The rest were for men. I asked about the Kangaroo pill in the women’s version. The employee we were talking to called another employee over who said that his girlfriend\u00a0used them and they worked well. He made vague claims about how her overall arousal was improved and how she was more enthusiastic during sex when she took them. We said we weren’t interested and continued shopping.<\/p>\n
I later came back to the general area of the pills while my friend was trying on a corset. I wasn’t actually\u00a0looking at the pills this time. I was holding a completely unrelated product, but was in the vicinity, when a different employee saw me.\u00a0She\u00a0walked over from the other side of the store and told me to\u00a0try the Kangaroo pills. She said that she used it herself and that it was the best of all the similar pills she had tried.<\/p>\n
I wasn’t interested in buying them, but I used\u00a0the opportunity to see what was in these pills.\u00a0When I see similar\u00a0products at convenience\u00a0stores, they are often\u00a0placed in such a way that I can’t pick them up and read the label. So I checked the ingredients in the Kangaroo pills. All of the packets\u00a0I saw had the price sticker over the ingredients list. I asked the employee if there was a way to uncover it\u00a0because I didn’t want to buy them without knowing what was in them. She pulled back the sticker for me.<\/p>\n Here are the active ingredients in Kangaroo\u00a0– For Her Ultimate Pleasure<\/a>:<\/p>\n Each active ingredient is supposed to have sexual benefits, or is claimed to help athletic ability or mood, which would then supposedly have a positive effect during sex. For the sex-related claims, all of the ingredients fit under:\u00a0Possibly effective but need further research, likely ineffective, or insufficient evidence.<\/p>\n I had very briefly considered buying a packet just to see if they worked. But personal experience isn’t the best test. There may be other factors, including the placebo effect, that could make me think they were effective. I also hesitated to give money to what might be a sham product. I wondered if any of these were harmful and about interactions with any medications I’m taking. And it’s a good thing I checked because some of the herbs can\u00a0create issues if taken with some of my medications. This is something many people might not think about when getting something from an adult store and when they’re not\u00a0in a medical setting.<\/p>\n I’ll admit that I was momentarily\u00a0intrigued when the woman described certain personal claims, such as increased sexual pleasure. Hustler has some great employees that can make you feel at ease when talking about products that some people might be embarrassed about. But I quickly remembered that it didn’t mean I shouldn’t be skeptical and look up these products. I don’t know if the employees were told to focus on selling the pills and they made up stories, or if they actually took them and believed they worked.\u00a0Even if they were being honest, the placebo effect or other factors could be why they thought highly of the pills. It’s possible that some of the\u00a0products\u00a0actually do provide some benefit, but there’s risks when taking products\u00a0that haven’t been properly tested.<\/p>\n There’s also the problem that many pills of\u00a0this type provide results\u00a0because they contain hidden ingredients, not because of the herbs. For example,\u00a0the FDA warned in 2013 that the Alpha Male pill<\/a> contained ingredients that are similar to\u00a0Cialis and\u00a0Viagra, which are real medications. Some people might think this is a\u00a0good thing, but this can be dangerous. The unlisted ingredients may\u00a0be in amounts that differ from the approved medications. And since they are not listed, someone may take this who otherwise shouldn’t, such as those with certain conditions or those who take medications that are\u00a0contraindicated\u00a0with the ingredients. The FDA has a long list of tainted sexual enhancement products<\/a>. But if\u00a0a pill you’re planning to take isn’t on the list, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe.<\/p>\n Remember, FDA cannot test all products on the market that contain potentially harmful hidden ingredients. Enforcement actions and consumer advisories for tainted products only cover a small fraction of the tainted over-the-counter products on the market.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Some sexual herbal\u00a0pills\u00a0are labeled as enhancing sex, while others claim to fix health problems. I’d rather go to a doctor if I were having certain problems. Some sexual issues\u00a0can be treated with\u00a0science-based medicine that has been thoroughly tested. And some problems\u00a0may be a sign of an underlying cause or multiple causes<\/a> that need to be diagnosed and treated. There’s no shame in needing help just because they’re sexual issues. Some people may\u00a0buy these products\u00a0because they’re embarrassed to go to the doctor about it. But\u00a0the potential harm of taking these pills isn’t worth\u00a0avoiding an appointment with your doctor\u00a0and could result in far more visits in the long run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last month, I was hanging out with a friend on\u00a0the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, CA. After dining\u00a0at the Rainbow,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":16,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5,13,19,18,20],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-skepticism","tag-alternative-medicine","tag-health","tag-herbal-medicine","tag-sex","tag-sexual-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/verycherry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/verycherry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/verycherry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/verycherry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/verycherry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/verycherry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/verycherry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/verycherry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/verycherry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/verycherry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n
\n<\/a><\/li>\n
\n<\/a><\/li>\n