Students use ‘honey bags’ for sex. Don’t do it.

On November 28, 2024By Pranco

A new one sex trend below students gets attention TikTok − and doctors are concerned about it.

That trend is the use of honey sachets, a controversial supplement that the market sells for sexual enhancement. In a TikTok with more than 400,000 viewsArizona State University students chuckle as they claim to have taken the supplement themselves or noticed its use campus.

“Hey, a man never reveals his secrets, I can’t say,” says one student when asked if he took any, before giggling and walking off camera.

Doctors aren’t laughing, though. The Food and Drug Administration has warnings issued about several brands of honey packages, stating hidden drug ingredients in the product.

The big problem, doctors say, is that when you ingest a packet of honey, you really don’t know what’s in it. Some of these products, they say, contain natural ingredients like maca and ginseng – which, while harmless, will have little impact on your sex life, apart from a placebo effect. However, others contain pharmaceutical ingredients, such as tadalafil, the active ingredient in Cialis, a drug intended to treat erectile dysfunction.

“I just think it’s an unnecessary thing to do,” says Dr. Peter Leoneprofessor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. “I care about people having good sex and sexual pleasure, but I prefer safer ways to do that.”

‘Honey bags’ for sex are dangerous

According to this TikTok, ASU students are no strangers to honey packets. A male student in the video claims to have taken several in one evening.

However, honey packets are nothing new; there are many brands for sale at liquor stores and truck stops, much to the chagrin of doctors.

“It’s crazy,” says Dr. Jesse Millsa clinical professor of health sciences and director of the Men’s Clinic at the University of California, Los Angeles. “You can go to any liquor store and truck stop and buy a packet of honey, and you have no idea what’s in it.”

This uncertainty makes these packages dangerous, Mills adds. Tadalafil is an extremely powerful treatment for erectile dysfunction, but it can have serious side effects, including death, if it interacts with other medications, he says.

Leone adds that tadalafil also has negative effects when it interacts with alcohol. “I would worry about children having their blood pressure drop, having problems with fainting or dizziness,” he says, adding that it is also possible to overdose on it.

The reality is that most middle-aged men do not suffer from erectile dysfunction and therefore have no valid reason to take honey packs. If a young man is struggling with sexual health, sexual performance, or erectile dysfunction, he should consult a doctor before taking any medications or supplements.

“If a student has questions about how well he or she is performing sexually, these should be assessed by a sexual health specialist, and we can determine how much of it is something physiological that we can treat or how much of it is something that we have to approach it from a more psychological point of view,” says Mills.

Why do students promote ‘honey bags’ for sex?

The online discourse about honey bags raises an important question: why do some young men feel the need to use honey bags in the first place, assuming they have no sexual health problems?

“These young boys need packets of honey?” wrote one TikTok commenter. “Normalizing ED (or erectile dysfunction) is insane,” wrote another. “A student taking a packet of honey is not flex, I would be ashamed to admit that,” another added.

Doctors say the interest in honey packets among college students speaks to the insecurities many young men feel around sex, as well as their desire to fit in with peers. Sex culture in particular, they say, may be causing young men to feel more pressure in the bedroom: Not only are they concerned about pleasing their partner, they may also be concerned about how they relate to others people their partner has slept with before. .

“They don’t think about sexual dysfunction,” Mills says. “They think about how can I perform, how can I be better than I was or better than other partners this person has had, and it’s more of an internal competition. It has nothing to do with their erectile dysfunction.”

For those facing this uncertainty, it is important to know that taking a honey packet is not the answer.

“If a student is already having trouble getting and maintaining an erection during intercourse, then that is a major health problem that needs to be addressed,” says Mills. “But if they think it’s just going to help them hang on longer, and help them party harder, then it’s probably not going to work unless they really believe in it. In that case, everything works, because the placebo effect is incredible.” is powerful.”