Thursday, June 09, 2005

Let them voyeur and then let them compete

From Dave Berry, of all places....

New evidence regarding sperm competition: Rivals spur men to produce better sperm
15:56 08 June 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Rachel Nowak, Melbourne

[excerpts]
Men who view pornographic images of two men and a woman produce better-quality sperm than men viewing pornographic images of just women, an Australian study reveals.

The finding suggests that humans may be capable of subconsciously increasing semen quality when faced with the possibility that their sperm will have to outrun those of other men in a woman’s reproductive tract.

In samples from men who viewed the images containing the two men and a woman - the “sperm-competition” images - 52% of the sperm were motile. This compared with 49% sperm motility in the men who viewed the images of women only ...


But there was also a seemingly contradictory finding. Men who viewed the sperm-competition images had fewer sperm in their ejaculate: 61 million per millilitre compared to 77 million per millilitre for the men who viewed the female-only images. More studies are needed to explain this finding.

“It’s a fascinating study. The effect is obviously immediate. This suggests that something [in the body] can be adjusted very, very quickly,” says Jon Evans of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who studies sperm competition in guppy fish.

The findings might suggest ways to improve the quality of sperm during fertility treatment.


Ya know, I'm just glad to hear about a pro-infertility study these days (obviously not American) that doesn't involve whackos and snowflake babies... well, until porno is outlawed, that is.

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