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.

[steve-b]

Nonsense. The history of all the many examples of demographic transition (from the old breed-like-flies peasant stage to the modern industrial-society stage) indicates the opposite.

[wideawake]

Dead already?

Not at all. Western culture is spread and defended by more than reproduction.

However, a certain critical mass of reproduction is necessary.

My pastor is celibate, but he has done a yeoman's job of encouraging an ardently pro-life parish to the extent that one-third of our parish's living baotizands are under 10 years of age.

He has done his part admirably by ceaselessly teaching and instructing people in the West's heritage of Christian doctrine, sacred music and art, and Latin literature.

He has created a community that believes in the future, is proud of its past and lives with solidarity and mutual assistance.

Quite an achievement.

[najida]

Thank you....

Nice to know we can all have a purpose....not the same, nor even similar...but important ;)

[ArrogantBustard]

If they've not taken care of freedom by establishing essential protections that can't be infringed upon, regardless of the number of those that insist on destroying that condition,

Ludicrous! Any freedom can be infringed upon by the simple expedient of armed force.

[steve-b]

Fear not; a solution to the problem has been found!

[mysterio]

The Islamics also marry their daughters off as children, right after puberty, for maximum childbearing potential. If you don't allow your 11 or 12 year old daughter to marry, are you as bad as the Islamic terrorists and are your actions risking our future as a free society?

Answer carefully.

[thinking]

well! look like I will live forever....lol

[wideawake]

The history of all the many examples of demographic transition

The Algerians in France, the Turks in germany and the Pakistanis in the UK have apparently not read the reports.

They still reproduce at above-replacement levels and are actually more fertile now on a percentage basis than they were in the 1970s as they have eschewed assimilation.

As long as a group remains a small minority they will conform to the mores of the larger society to a certain extent.

However, in Spain, the European population is now halving every twenty years.

Spain will not be a particularly modern industrial society for very long when there are 10 million Spaniards and 25 million Moroccans living in Spain.

[Eagle Eye]

You have now taken us from contraception = Islamic conversion to referring to scripture to support your thoughts.

Y'all need a glass of warm milk, a hug, and a good night's sleep.

[TightyRighty]

And here is where Salimah lives:

If you want to live in a country that looks like Afghanistan or Iraq - keep telling people they need to continue to pop them out. It's obviously working so well in cities like Oakland where women have 5 kids they can't afford.

[wideawake]

The Islamics also marry their daughters off as children, right after puberty, for maximum childbearing potential. If you don't allow your 11 or 12 year old daughter to marry, are you as bad as the Islamic terrorists and are your actions risking our future as a free society?

Setting aside the fact that that is simply not true in 90% of the Muslim world, it doesn't matter.

Societies with decent standards of medicine are quite capable of not only replacing themselves but growing at a very good clip if 80% or so of the female population have three children each.

One does not need to start having children immediately after menarche.

A normal Western woman is quite capable of marrying in her twenties and having three children.

[najida]

Yeppers,
these are the same folks who pop up on the 'baby killed by boyfriend' threads denouncing those who are having baby after baby after baby.

[Larry Lucido]

LOL!

[steve-b]

Sorry, but you don't get to have it both ways.

Either personal preferences are to be respected (in which case there is no reason to pay any attention to your entire line or argument) or not (in which case, how many goats would you like for your 12-year-old daughter?)

[wideawake]

And here is where Salimah lives:

Correct.

Inconvenient for her, however her grandkids will live in nice houses they conquered from people who never had grandkids.

FReeper Alouette is not wealthy, but she has a very large family and did not live in Salimah conditions.

The priest who officiated at our wedding is the 17th of 18 children.

His parents were dairy farmers in upstate New York of modest means.

All 18 are successful people, more than 10 have college educations, three have advanced degrees.

Their parents never lived in squalor and now live quite comfortably since they have 18 loving children and more than 100 grandchildren to look after them.

[Pyro7480]

Don't tell me what to do. ;-)

[Pyro7480]

these are the same folks who pop up on the 'baby killed by boyfriend' threads denouncing those who are having baby after baby after baby.M/i>

I'd say there is a lot less overlap than you think.

[najida]

It just seems that for a belief system that champions the rights of the individual, we seem to get our knickers in a twist over people not doing what we want them to do ;)

[wideawake]

Sorry, but you don't get to have it both ways.

No one's talking about two ways.

One can have a fulfilled Western life and have a nuclear family with a minimum of three children, guaranteeing the maintenance of that way of life for the next generation.

It's not an either/or proposition.

You imply that there is no middle ground between irresponsible license and government-mandated breeding programs.

But there is a middle ground: self-respecting people with self-control, choosing to to say yes to the future.

[RandallFlagg]

People will talk . . . :-)

That's probably not ALL they're doin'.