The post WTF Is Horny Goat Weed? appeared first on High Times.
Horny goat weed isn’t a name you forget. You may have seen pouches of it on the shelves of your local bodega or gas station and wondered, WTF is horny goat weed? Well, we’ve finally got you some answers. It’s an herb, but you won’t want to smoke this one. They usually come in pills. You can even find bottles of them on the shelves of vitamin stores now. The plant has been sold in the United States for decades as an aphrodisiac. However, it does more than that and its use dates back centuries in other countries.
Name Origin
The history of the name horny goat weed goes way back. In fact, the Chinese have been calling it that in herbal supplement guides since the Northern and Southern dynasties (420-589).
Legend has it, the Physician Tao Hongjing began studying the herb after a goat herder told him about a grass that was making his male goats overly sexually active. He noticed something every time his goat or sheep chewed on a certain patch of grass. They became excited and mated several more times a day than usual. This led him to name the plant “Yin Yang Huo,” which loosely translates to “licentious goat plant.”
Licentious means promiscuous with no sexual manners AKA horny. When American supplement companies wanted to market the herb, they went with the name that’d forever be ingrained in our brains: horny goat weed.
What Does It Do?
The name and their placement next to male enhancement pills at the bodega are a hint at only one the capabilities this ancient herb has. After the goat herder brought it to his attention, Tao