What are the scientific reasons for having sex?

The Register (UK) ^ | 10 oct 06 | Dr Stephen Juan

[white trash redneck]

What are the scientific reasons for having sex?

Asked by Jill Howard of Alexandria, Virginia, USA

The reasons for not engaging in sex include transmission of diseases, heart attack due to exertion, and many others. The reasons for engaging in sex are numerous. Among these are:

• Sex helps boost the immune system. According to Dr Carl Charnetski of the Department of Psychology at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, people who reported one or two sexual "episodes" per week enjoyed higher levels of Immunoglobin A. This is an antibody that helps fight disease.

• Sex helps boost longevity. In one study cited by Dr Charnetski, men who had more orgasms over a 10 year period boosted their longevity compared with those who had fewer.

• Sex helps ward off cancer. In another study cited by Dr Charnetski, men who had more ejaculations over a 35 year period had 33 per cent less prostate cancer compared to those with fewer ejaculations.

• Sex results in a more youthful appearance. According to a study by Dr David Weeks, a clinical neuropsychologist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Scotland and co-author of Superyoung (1999), men and women who reported having sex an average of four times per week looked approximately 10 years younger than they really were.

• Sex helps reduce stress. Numerous studies show that it does this through lowering anxiety levels, boosting relaxation, and aiding sleeping.

• Sex helps fight depression. A study by Dr Gordon Gallup of the Department of Psychology at the State University of New York at Albany found that women who regularly engage in heterosexual sex in which they come in contact with semen were significantly less depressed than those women that did not. he causal relationship is unclear. Dr Gallup speculates that "possibly because when absorbed through the vagina, semen may have an effect on mood in women". However, Dr Gallup is quick to point out: "Regardless of the findings, this study does not advocate that people abstain from using condoms. Protecting oneself from an unwanted pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease is far more important."

• Sex helps coping with middle age. This is the inference drawn from research by Dr GA Bachmann at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey and published first in 1995 in the International Journal of Fertility and Menopausal Studies and continuing in The Journal of Sexual Medicine in 2006.

• Sex is good exercise. Exercise helps circulation, lowers cholesterol, and releases helpful endorphins.

• Sex helps in losing weight. Well, at least a little. One burns approximately four to five calories per minute or perhaps 300 calories per hour during sex (depending upon how, shall we say, "vigorous" the sex is). About 7,000 to 8,000 excess calories must be burned to lose one kilogram of fat (3,500 to lose one pound). You do the calculations.

Stephen Juan, Ph.D. is an anthropologist at the University of Sydney.

[mrsmith]

"On being asked how he had "discovered" the law of gravitation, Newton replied 'by thinking on it continually"

Real scientists think on women constantly, they are such a mystery. ...and while we're on them- thnking, you know- stuff happens.

[wideawake]

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Nervous laughter isn't an argument.

You and your cohorts don't have much to say about the democraphic timebomb that is the West and Islam.

There are more teenagers in tiny Yemen than there are in Russia or Germany or the UK.

[Just another Joe]

So THIS is why I am so healthy, young looking, happy, in such good shape, and slim and trim.

I KNEW there had to be a reason for it.

;^)

[AppyPappy]

It's not the number of kids. It's the quality of kids. Some populations in history reproduced rapidly but ended up killing themselves at higher rate. One war and BAM, no more advantage. Or one Cultural Revolution or Ayatollah and the cream of the crop is gone.

[wideawake]

Both.

[wideawake]

I'm deadly serious.

And you should at least give the demographic situation more than a cursory glance.

[AppyPappy]

Yeah and they are mindless robots who kill each other with amazing frequency.

[white trash redneck]

What's foreplay?

;-}

[Brett66]

ROFL!

[Pyro7480]

Don't cry to me then when the Mohammedan hordes run roughshod across the world.

[Dracian]

Only animals that reproduced have ancestors living today.

Ha. I won't even try to fix that sentence. I hope you all know what I meant. :-)

[Rudder]

Actually, sex is an impediment to reproduction.
I have 3 kids. It's the other way around.

LOL! I know what you're talking about...I've got 3 kids as well.

[Herakles]

One additional reason; sex helps the natural selection process in finding those in the gene pool who are resistant to STDs; the ones who were not resistant are considered fail attempts. The up side is that at least the failures had some fun before inheriting their fate.

Bottom line; hope you enjoy being nature's lab rat, I was made for better things, I hope!

[Pyro7480]

Read post #43, and the link in post #53, and let's see if you're still laughing.

[REDWOOD99]

Mrs. Redwood ping

[NRA2BFree]

My, what a substantive statement.

Westerners reproduce at below replacement rates, and the USA is the only Western country of any size that is reproducing at a replacement rate.

Europe is being overtaken by Muslims because Europeans are no longer producing enough children to sustain their population.

People who intentionally limit their reproduction are handing their future over to the Muslims, who aren't.

There is no practical difference between ceding the future to Islam and converting to Islam. One is still helping them to gain the ascendancy over the West.

I refer you to Mark Steyn's recent book America Alone in which he describes the demographic situation in detail.

Right now, one in every three children born in France is Muslim, despite Muslims comprising only one in ten of the population. In 15 years that ratio will be one in two.

As I said, it's nutz to make that kind of statement. There is NO comparison between birth control and converting to ISLAM! That's just "your opinion," which, of course, you're entitled to but, it's still nutz, and THAT is my opinion. Long before we are faced with that problem, one or more Muslim countries may be nuked off the face of the earth, so it's ridiculous say that we are going to have to convert to ISLAM!

[WV Mountain Mama]

Thanks for posting this. I'll hand it to the Wife and see what happens....

She'll say she needs more reasons, therefore, nothing will happen. ;)

[wideawake]

It's not the number of kids. It's the quality of kids.

So, in theory, if there were only one single Western child but he was the most well-behaved, intelligent and cultured individual ever he would be more than a match for one billion Islamic kids and the future would belong to him?

Or is there actually a quantitative aspect to this after all?

[newcthem]

And are we to suppose that this study was tax-payer funded?

[ArrogantBustard]

Abandoning a huge section of the world to mohammedanism (or communism or any other evil ideology) does amount to support for that ideology. I support Christian missions in Africa.