SarahG
08-15-2009, 07:26 AM
Given this thread (http://www.hungangels.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=47896&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0), I decided to make a new thread to revisit a topic I believe there was briefly a thread on here ~2 years ago. I tried in vain to find the original thread, but I could not finding it. Maybe I am just loosing my mind and I really saw it somewhere else.
At any rate, there are a few intriguing studies that indicate that people can develop a dependency on sperm after long term exposure.
The first article (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2457) I came across relating to sperm dependency was a link between sperm and depression (or the lack thereof) a few years ago.
The relevant information is here:
...divided 293 female students into groups depending on how often their partners wore condoms, and assessed their happiness using the Beck Depression Inventory, a standard questionnaire for assessing mood. People who score over 17 are considered moderately depressed.
The team found that women whose partners never used condoms scored 8 on average, those who sometimes used them scored 10.5, those who usually used them scored 15 and those who always used them scored 11.3. Women who weren't having sex at all scored 13.5.
What's more, the longer the interval since they last had sex, the more depressed the women who never or sometimes used condoms got. But the time since the last sexual encounter made no difference to the mood of women who usually or always used condoms.
The team also found that depressive symptoms and suicide attempts were more common among women who used condoms regularly compared with those who didn't. The results will appear in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.
And Gallup told New Scientist that his team already has unpublished data from a larger group of 700 women confirming these findings. In this study, the always-use-condoms group were more depressed than the usually-use-condoms group, suggesting the discrepancy in the smaller study was a sampling error, he says.
Now it would stand to reason that there is a link of some kind between sexual activity and depression (or the lack thereof). After all, if someone can't find someone to be sexually active with, I can see how that would logically make them feel bad about themselves. But this isn't really making such a point; on the contrary the NYU study from 2002 established that the reason for the psyc link lay in the actual exposure to the sperm itself... something that was avoided when using condoms to engage in safe sex. In other words, sperm was what was giving the benefit, not the orgasms or sexual contact itself. Or it could just be that "people who don't use condoms are generally happier" for other reasons (??).
It makes some sense that sperm could effect mood. After all sperm is full of all kinds of interesting chemicals including testosterone, progesterone, prolactin, oestrogen, oxytocin, etc.
What makes oxytocin interesting is that its been fairly well established to influence psychological attachment in other monogamous mammals. Consider this interesting piece of trivia (http://www.esquire.com/features/mri-of-love-0609#ixzz0OE0HWWl1):
So if you want to study monogamy — and the government won't let you manipulate human love lives — you play God with the voles. Scientists do this by tweaking two brain chemicals — oxytocin and vasopressin. If you suppress the vasopressin system, normally faithful voles start acting like Eliot Spitzer. But if you boost the vasopressin in a promiscuous vole (such as the prairie vole's randy cousin the montane vole), it settles down with a mate. Vasopressin seems to be a key to attachment in male rodents. Oxytocin is the female equivalent. They do their job in a brain section called the ventral pallidum
So for girls, being exposed to oxytocin in sperm could play a role in developing attachment to the guy you're getting the sperm from (I am tempted to say something about all those clingy, cuddling stereotypes about women here).
Bodily fluid has been suspected to have various links to health & well being before (i.e. babies & breast milk), it really wouldn't be surprising if sperm was the same way. Like this late 80's study (http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/access/50576520.html?dids=50576520:50576520&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Dec+08%2C+1989&author=&pub=St.+Petersburg+Times&desc=Barrier+contraceptives+linked+to+high+rate+of +immune+disease+Series%3A+medicine&pqatl=google) that tried to link sperm contact & immune system health;
The researchers interviewed 225 women who delivered babies at a North Carolina hospital. About half the women selected for the study had developed pre-eclampsia. The scientists found that women who used birth control methods that prevented sperm and seminal fluid from reaching the uterus were on average more than twice as likely to develop pre-eclampsia.
But preventing breast cancer?
A case-control study was conducted in order to test the hypothesis that a reduced exposure to human seminal factors in the early reproductive life of women is a risk factor in breast cancer. The relative risk of exposure to the hypothetical semen-factor deficiency is 4.7 times greater for breast-cancer patients than for the controls. When the contraceptive methods alone are taken into account, the relative risk increases up to 5.3. About 16 percent of the women using barrier methods (condom, and other) and 3.4 percent of women using non-barrier contraceptive methods (diaphragm, pill, IUDs, rhythm, tubal ligation, and other) would develop breast cancer. The risk of developing breast cancer within the same population in the U.S. is 5 times greater in women who use barrier methods than in women who use non-barrier contraceptive methods.
Unfortunately I haven't seen anything more recent exploring this (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WN2-4C0CYXX-S7&_user=10&_coverDate=04/30/1978&_alid=459739520&_rdoc=228&_fmt=summary&_orig=search&_cdi=6950&_sort=d&_st=13&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8ccc92fa1c1ceb0fd5057380d50e2fba) (this study was from 1978), who knows where that theory stands today.
So what's in it for the guys (besides the obvious)? I find it interesting that frequent/regular ejaculation is one of the treatments for prostatitis (prostate inflammation). Maybe one of the reasons why prostatitis onset is more common among middle aged & older guys is because that's the point in their lives when they're most likely to see their sex lives take a dive because of stuff like the "married with children" effect (to use another stereotype).
But if sperm has a meaningful amount of oxytocin or vasopressin, would that mean that consuming ones own sperm could lead to self-attachment? http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/39.gif After all some companies have tried offering "love potion" scents using either oxytocin (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&q=oxytocin+perfume&aq=f&aqi=g1&fp=e8a1623cef6def65) or vasopressin (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&q=vasopressin+perfume&aq=f&aqi=&fp=aa8b86c12cfed473) under the theory that it would subliminally cause ones partner to become more "attached" and therefore "more faithful." When combined with pheromones to create attraction (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=pheromone+perfume&aq=f&aqi=g10&fp=e8a1623cef6def65), these products might be on to something... or they could just be a big waste of money. http://i42.tinypic.com/2laelmp.gif
Anyone see anything else interesting lately?
At any rate, there are a few intriguing studies that indicate that people can develop a dependency on sperm after long term exposure.
The first article (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2457) I came across relating to sperm dependency was a link between sperm and depression (or the lack thereof) a few years ago.
The relevant information is here:
...divided 293 female students into groups depending on how often their partners wore condoms, and assessed their happiness using the Beck Depression Inventory, a standard questionnaire for assessing mood. People who score over 17 are considered moderately depressed.
The team found that women whose partners never used condoms scored 8 on average, those who sometimes used them scored 10.5, those who usually used them scored 15 and those who always used them scored 11.3. Women who weren't having sex at all scored 13.5.
What's more, the longer the interval since they last had sex, the more depressed the women who never or sometimes used condoms got. But the time since the last sexual encounter made no difference to the mood of women who usually or always used condoms.
The team also found that depressive symptoms and suicide attempts were more common among women who used condoms regularly compared with those who didn't. The results will appear in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.
And Gallup told New Scientist that his team already has unpublished data from a larger group of 700 women confirming these findings. In this study, the always-use-condoms group were more depressed than the usually-use-condoms group, suggesting the discrepancy in the smaller study was a sampling error, he says.
Now it would stand to reason that there is a link of some kind between sexual activity and depression (or the lack thereof). After all, if someone can't find someone to be sexually active with, I can see how that would logically make them feel bad about themselves. But this isn't really making such a point; on the contrary the NYU study from 2002 established that the reason for the psyc link lay in the actual exposure to the sperm itself... something that was avoided when using condoms to engage in safe sex. In other words, sperm was what was giving the benefit, not the orgasms or sexual contact itself. Or it could just be that "people who don't use condoms are generally happier" for other reasons (??).
It makes some sense that sperm could effect mood. After all sperm is full of all kinds of interesting chemicals including testosterone, progesterone, prolactin, oestrogen, oxytocin, etc.
What makes oxytocin interesting is that its been fairly well established to influence psychological attachment in other monogamous mammals. Consider this interesting piece of trivia (http://www.esquire.com/features/mri-of-love-0609#ixzz0OE0HWWl1):
So if you want to study monogamy — and the government won't let you manipulate human love lives — you play God with the voles. Scientists do this by tweaking two brain chemicals — oxytocin and vasopressin. If you suppress the vasopressin system, normally faithful voles start acting like Eliot Spitzer. But if you boost the vasopressin in a promiscuous vole (such as the prairie vole's randy cousin the montane vole), it settles down with a mate. Vasopressin seems to be a key to attachment in male rodents. Oxytocin is the female equivalent. They do their job in a brain section called the ventral pallidum
So for girls, being exposed to oxytocin in sperm could play a role in developing attachment to the guy you're getting the sperm from (I am tempted to say something about all those clingy, cuddling stereotypes about women here).
Bodily fluid has been suspected to have various links to health & well being before (i.e. babies & breast milk), it really wouldn't be surprising if sperm was the same way. Like this late 80's study (http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/access/50576520.html?dids=50576520:50576520&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Dec+08%2C+1989&author=&pub=St.+Petersburg+Times&desc=Barrier+contraceptives+linked+to+high+rate+of +immune+disease+Series%3A+medicine&pqatl=google) that tried to link sperm contact & immune system health;
The researchers interviewed 225 women who delivered babies at a North Carolina hospital. About half the women selected for the study had developed pre-eclampsia. The scientists found that women who used birth control methods that prevented sperm and seminal fluid from reaching the uterus were on average more than twice as likely to develop pre-eclampsia.
But preventing breast cancer?
A case-control study was conducted in order to test the hypothesis that a reduced exposure to human seminal factors in the early reproductive life of women is a risk factor in breast cancer. The relative risk of exposure to the hypothetical semen-factor deficiency is 4.7 times greater for breast-cancer patients than for the controls. When the contraceptive methods alone are taken into account, the relative risk increases up to 5.3. About 16 percent of the women using barrier methods (condom, and other) and 3.4 percent of women using non-barrier contraceptive methods (diaphragm, pill, IUDs, rhythm, tubal ligation, and other) would develop breast cancer. The risk of developing breast cancer within the same population in the U.S. is 5 times greater in women who use barrier methods than in women who use non-barrier contraceptive methods.
Unfortunately I haven't seen anything more recent exploring this (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WN2-4C0CYXX-S7&_user=10&_coverDate=04/30/1978&_alid=459739520&_rdoc=228&_fmt=summary&_orig=search&_cdi=6950&_sort=d&_st=13&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8ccc92fa1c1ceb0fd5057380d50e2fba) (this study was from 1978), who knows where that theory stands today.
So what's in it for the guys (besides the obvious)? I find it interesting that frequent/regular ejaculation is one of the treatments for prostatitis (prostate inflammation). Maybe one of the reasons why prostatitis onset is more common among middle aged & older guys is because that's the point in their lives when they're most likely to see their sex lives take a dive because of stuff like the "married with children" effect (to use another stereotype).
But if sperm has a meaningful amount of oxytocin or vasopressin, would that mean that consuming ones own sperm could lead to self-attachment? http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/39.gif After all some companies have tried offering "love potion" scents using either oxytocin (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&q=oxytocin+perfume&aq=f&aqi=g1&fp=e8a1623cef6def65) or vasopressin (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&q=vasopressin+perfume&aq=f&aqi=&fp=aa8b86c12cfed473) under the theory that it would subliminally cause ones partner to become more "attached" and therefore "more faithful." When combined with pheromones to create attraction (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=pheromone+perfume&aq=f&aqi=g10&fp=e8a1623cef6def65), these products might be on to something... or they could just be a big waste of money. http://i42.tinypic.com/2laelmp.gif
Anyone see anything else interesting lately?