Aphrodite, sex and salt—from butterfly to man

For thousands of years, the merits of salt were considered with high esteem. It made meals palatable and served as an efficient food preservative. It is only in the last hundred years that some medical scientists started to question the innocuity of usual salt intake. They held salt responsible for the induction of arterial hypertension and associated pathologies, and subsequently, for a number of other disease states. Those with the most profound conviction of its implication in health bondage called it the ‘poisonous gift of Neptune’. It is not our intention to enter the ongoing debate on what is the most appropriate intake of salt. The relation between salt and sexuality is a matter for serious consideration, both with regard to an ancient myth related to Aphrodite and with regard to the association between salt appetite and reproduction. Restriction of salt intake has major effects on procreation, gestation and lactation. Salt-induced alterations of neurophysiological functions and sexual behaviour have already been presumed by the ancient Greeks. Later on, these assumptions received scientific support. Mythology is a kind of counter-narrative description of what cannot be explained rationally as long as science prolegomena are not connected with human experience. Focussing on Aphrodite’s myth, we shall try first to consider how salt, a mere mineral substance, is intimately related to the goddess of love in a recurrent struggle against sterility and death.