Viagra, the libido-restoring wonder drug, may be making life sweeter for species other than human: seals and other wild animals hunted for the purportedly aphrodisiac quality of their body parts may soon be spared as well. >> The demand for "aphrodisiac" seal penises has resulted in the rebirth of the Canadian seal hunt, says Rebecca Aldworth of Canadians Against the Commercial Seal Hunt. The group has been promoting alternative sex therapies among Asian people, who are the penises' biggest buyers. Viagra may just put an end to the seal trade altogether, as well as the trade in "aphrodisiac" parts of bears, tigers, elephants and rhinos. >> The sale of seal pup pelts is illegal now (Aldworth says hundreds of thousands of unsold white pelts languish in warehouses around the world), and no one wants the adult seal pelts. Moreover, a taste for seal meat--despite sealers' best efforts at marketing it as a hip food for teenagers in Japan--has not caught on. >> Seal penises, however, are still big business. Aldworth says reports have come from Nova Scotia describing thousands of seal carcasses washing up on the shore, intact except for their penises. The penises fetch up to $650 each and are sold largely in Asia, though some have been found in Toronto's Chinatown, and even in one Toronto souvenir shop as a grisly gift-boxed souvenir of Canada. >> All this, even though there is no proof that ingestion of dismembered penises has any effect whatsoever on sexual performance. Says Rick Smith of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, "The human need to find new aphrodisiacs is really kind of astounding." --Jacquie Charlton
Viagra, the libido-restoring wonder drug, may be making life sweeter for species other than human: seals and other wild animals hunted for the purportedly aphrodisiac quality of their body parts may soon be spared as well. >> The demand for "aphrodisiac" seal penises has resulted in the rebirth of the Canadian seal hunt, says Rebecca Aldworth of Canadians Against the Commercial Seal Hunt. The group has been promoting alternative sex therapies among Asian people, who are the penises' biggest buyers. Viagra may just put an end to the seal trade altogether, as well as the trade in "aphrodisiac" parts of bears, tigers, elephants and rhinos. >> The sale of seal pup pelts is illegal now (Aldworth says hundreds of thousands of unsold white pelts languish in warehouses around the world), and no one wants the adult seal pelts. Moreover, a taste for seal meat--despite sealers' best efforts at marketing it as a hip food for teenagers in Japan--has not caught on. >> Seal penises, however, are still big business. Aldworth says reports have come from Nova Scotia describing thousands of seal carcasses washing up on the shore, intact except for their penises. The penises fetch up to $650 each and are sold largely in Asia, though some have been found in Toronto's Chinatown, and even in one Toronto souvenir shop as a grisly gift-boxed souvenir of Canada. >> All this, even though there is no proof that ingestion of dismembered penises has any effect whatsoever on sexual performance. Says Rick Smith of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, "The human need to find new aphrodisiacs is really kind of astounding." --Jacquie Charlton