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.

[Pyro7480]

You have a whole thread to catch up on. Read his other comments.

[Killborn]

"eleventy gillion"

I'll remember that number next time I need something hyperbolic and funny. :)

[CzarNicky]

Too bad the Czar didn't post a complete set of them.

Go to the factbook and look them up yourself I am not your secretary. needless to say I said the vast majority of muslim countries are in the 2-3 children per woman range with some outliers such as Arabia and Pakistan being the big ones. There are also some African ones that have high growth rates but Africa has other problems not related to islam.

[Pyro7480]

My bet is this thread will hit 500+ postings in 24 hours

24 hours? The rate this is going, it's going to only take a third of that.

[CzarNicky]

please see post 380

[ArrogantBustard]

You're the one purporting to do useful research. Do some.

needless to say I said the vast majority of muslim countries are in the 2-3 children per woman range with some outliers such as Arabia and Pakistan being the big ones.

Yet you chose to post places like Albania and Tunisia, whilst ignoring all of Western Europe. That's just garbage research.

[spunkets]

"Do NOT put words in my mouth."

I didn't make your posts.

" Civilisations have risen, collapsed, and been replaced throughout human history. ...Demographic decline is one (of many) causes of civilisational collapse."

If by civilization you mean the authoritarian ordering of the world, regardless of extent, sure. The ordering changes. I only consider freedom civil, not authoritarian ordering.

In no way do I support the idea that the purpose of the gift of life is to support demographic considerations to protect anyone's world order. I'll give the gift of life simply so they can enjoy it, as I have. I'm not interested in creating folks, so they can staff armies, do my laundry, or take care of other people.

[teenyelliott]

God bless you for your sacrifice (your choice to stay at home with your kids).

I appreciate that, but it is no sacrifice. I am a mom, and my children come first.

[wideawake]

It was your own argument that was based on the fallacy of the excluded middle

Not at all.

A people that reproduces at or above replacement rate continues to exist and a people that reproduces below replacement rate eventually ceases to exist.

Either a people replaces itself or it fails to.

[JackDanielsOldNo7]

No thanks.

[valkyrieanne]

Before 1930, people who believed in Christianity, regardless of denomination, thought contraception is inherently sinful.

That didn't stop them from using it. Regardless of what individual churches said, people followed their own consciences, especially in the US, and spaced their children. Trying to make it seem like all non-Catholic forms of Christianity believed 100% what Catholics did before 1930 is a historical distortion.

The point here is *choice* in family spacing - not choice in abortion, that's not what I'm talking about. But since everyone's so exercised about the Muslim birth rate, look at what various Muslim societies have done over the globe and over the years (not all Muslims - I will admit that):

- made it so that girls are married off after their first period (sometimes as young as 9 or 10.)
-actually deliberately fattening young girls so they get their periods sooner (and thus can get married sooner.)
- married young girls off as multiple wives
- keeping girls and women terrorized and brutalized by female genital mutilation
- made it a death penalty offense for women to use birth control without their husband's permission (Iran after the revolution, through the late 1980s.)
- restricted women's education and freedom, from forbidding women to drive, forbidding education, forbidding women to travel outside the country on their own, etc.

All of these things have resulted in very high Muslim fertility rates. There is nothing wrong with the Euro and Western population hovering around replacement. We don't have to crank out babies - what we need to do is make it so that Muslim women enjoy the freedoms that Christian women do (and many Christians do use non-abortion-causing birth control.)

[ArrogantBustard]

Snide remarks do not an argument make.

I give your cherry-picking research in #331 a grade of "F". You clearly have access to the fertility rates in large islamic countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and in major Western countries like UK, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Canada ... yet you decline to post them. Why is that?

[steve-b]

Sorry; I see your memory is failing.

Your original argument, verbatim:

There is no practical difference between using contraception and converting to Islam.

You can look it up -- either upthread, or looking for it as an example in a logic textbook under "Fallacy Of The Excluded Middle".

[Pyro7480]

Trying to make it seem like all non-Catholic forms of Christianity believed 100% what Catholics did before 1930 is a historical distortion.

LOL! The distortion is the above line. I never said that Catholics and Protestants believed the same thing on every issue. However, they did agree on contraception.

There is nothing wrong with the Euro and Western population hovering around replacement.

That's the problem. The Euro population ISN'T hovering replacement. It's much below that.

[Pyro7480]

That's a good attitude. :-)

[steve-b]

Perhaps you need to do you own homework.

First assignment: fertility rate in Iran, at least one data point per decade covering the twentieth century.

[CzarNicky]

You're the one purporting to do useful research. Do some.

When Rush Limbaugh asked his science teacher if hot water froze faster than cold his science teacher made him do the experiment and write a paper on it in addition to his other homework. I say to you go do the research yourself I have already provide the source you just have to look it up. If you are too lazy to do so that is not my problem. To assume I am to do so for you is quite shall I say arrogant.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

OK, all those unicellular guys win on the body count. Who wins on the tonnage count? Mammals + Reptiles + Birds + Fish? Or the little unicellular guys?

[CzarNicky]

Snide remarks do not an argument make

So you are planning on ceasing to make them?

[ArrogantBustard]

If by civilization you mean the authoritarian ordering of the world,

No ... I to the whole gamut of human interpersonal relationships ... government is only a small part of that.