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.

[You Dirty Rats]

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

Does that make my urologist Mohammed for converting thousands to Islam by performing vasectomies?

[reagan_fanatic]

...printing out the reasons to give to my Wife later tonight...

[wideawake]

Are you crazy? LOL THAT, FRiend, is just plain nutz.

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.

[Pyro7480]

While I don't count myself among the "sex only for procreation" types

I would clarify the above by saying that the primary end of sex is procreation. But a secondary end is the unitive (aka the pleasurable) aspect of that act.

[ArrogantBustard]

the "sex only for procreation" types,

I don't recall having met very many such ... I'm certainly not one. I doubt wideawake is, either. OTOH, see tagline. Human sexuality is ordered to the union of the spouses, and the procreation of the species. Unfortunately, some folks have turned it into a trivial game for playboys, with disastrous consequences.

[PatriotCJC]

I guess I've been doing it for all the wrong reasons.

[wideawake]

Take it up with Mark Steyn. It's really not my fault if you can't follow the logic of actions and their consequences.

[stm]

You have a dick-doc named Mohammed? LOL

[Cicero]

I think both Darwin and the Church can agree on one point, if nothing else: The primary purpose of sex is reproduction.

[IamConservative]

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

According to the Norwegian University of Technology and Science, that is more nutted than the feces of any of the various arboreal rodents of the genus "Sciurus" and related genera of the family "Sciuridae."

[Rudder]

Asexual reproduction is easier, doesn't require being attractive to another conspecific and is the most common means of reproduction. Sex is a selective pressure inasmuch as it favors only the more vigorous, attractive and socially adroit.

[Hegemony Cricket]

geek pickup lines...

[Pyro7480]

It's the demography, stupid ..... Mark Steyn

[.30Carbine]

Oh my! This could take a while. (;

[A Texan]

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

Wow, just wow. I don't even know what to say to someone that believes something like this.

[wideawake]

The utter lack of rational responses to the accurate statement I made indicates that you and your cohorts have nothing useful to say.

Look at Western birthrates and compare them to Muslim birthrates and get back to me.

[LonePalm]

You mean you actually have to have a reason?

I've heard it said that women need a reason to have sex and men need a location.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Pyro7480]

Read post #43 and the link in post #53.

[DungeonMaster]

Bad science.

[AngryJawa]

What are the scientific reasons for having sex?

Uh, repayment for dinner and a show?