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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From house Stop works dot Com. Hello, welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen. One of my

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Speaker 1: favorite episodes of the past was about menstrual synchrony. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This idea that women when they're in close contact with

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Speaker 1: each other, perhaps in a dorm or perhaps even in

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Speaker 1: a workplace, they all start having their periods at the

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Speaker 1: same time. Yes. This is also known as the McClintic effect. Right,

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Speaker 1: So we explored uh, that phenomena which some people think

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Speaker 1: happens and some people think don't. I think we aired

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Speaker 1: on the side of it's a myth when we did

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Speaker 1: our podcast. Um. But one of the interesting offshoots of

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Speaker 1: the McClintock effect is the study that came out in

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Speaker 1: two thousand two, which gets picked up I think every

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Speaker 1: year or so by by the media that there might

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Speaker 1: be a link between human and happiness. Right. This came

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Speaker 1: out in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, and the lead

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Speaker 1: researcher was a guy named Gordon Gallop, a psychology professor

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Speaker 1: at State University of New York in Albany, and Gallop

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Speaker 1: starts thinking about the meclinic effect and how it doesn't

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Speaker 1: translate to cohabitating lesbian couples. They typically don't tend to

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Speaker 1: sync up their menstruations. Gallop wonders whether or not this

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Speaker 1: has something to do with different pheromones in their sweat,

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Speaker 1: because people who got into the meclonic effect, and it

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Speaker 1: was highly disputed, but people who thought that menstrual synchrony

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Speaker 1: existed attributed it to some kind of pheromones, some kind

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Speaker 1: of chemical compound in women's bodies that was linked to ovulation. So,

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Speaker 1: long story short, Gallop starts doing a lot of digging

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Speaker 1: and he studies. He stumbles on the study about semen. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you've got to look at something that cohabitating

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Speaker 1: lesbians don't have that these other women who are sinking

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Speaker 1: up do have. And these other women were in heterosexual relationships.

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Speaker 1: So he says, the missing factor here in the cohabitating

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Speaker 1: lesbians relationship is sperm. There must be something in sperm

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Speaker 1: that uh and semen that you know is doing something

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Speaker 1: here right, And I think that now would be a

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Speaker 1: good time to differentiate between sperm and semen because not

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Speaker 1: to be crude. But semen is not just a big

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Speaker 1: old spoonful of sperm. It is in actuality nineties six

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Speaker 1: percent water, and only one to of the average human

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Speaker 1: ejaculate consists of sperm cells. So what else is in it?

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Speaker 1: While we have lots and lots of compounds including hormones,

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Speaker 1: neurotransmitters and doorphins and immunosuppressants, it's chock full of good things. Molly,

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Speaker 1: I know you see you mentioned that it's nice six

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Speaker 1: percent water, but that other four percent is an infane

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Speaker 1: chemical cocktail, and that four percent is really what Gallop

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Speaker 1: and his fellow researchers start to study to see if

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Speaker 1: there's something about that seminal fluid that can uh tell

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Speaker 1: us you know something about women. And it turns out

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Speaker 1: he thinks his theory and he says it's just a theory,

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Speaker 1: no need to start acting on this yet. Is that

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Speaker 1: something in semen makes women happier. And this is all

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Speaker 1: based on Gallops correlation that he found among semen exposure

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Speaker 1: and reported happiness. And this all goes back to self reporting,

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Speaker 1: which is one thing that you should keep in mind

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Speaker 1: with a potential methodological flaw in the study. But Basically,

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Speaker 1: Gallop recruits two nine three undergrad students female students. The

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Speaker 1: women answer questions about their sex lives, including the frequency

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Speaker 1: of sex, how long it's been since they've had sex,

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Speaker 1: and what type of birth control that they use. And

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Speaker 1: they also take a test to rate their level of depression.

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Speaker 1: And they also note whether or not they're using condoms,

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Speaker 1: essentially whether or not uh ejaculate is getting inside of

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Speaker 1: them right. And what he finds is that those women

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Speaker 1: who are having unprotected sex. Now, the major flaw to

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Speaker 1: me is that he doesn't define what a relationship is

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Speaker 1: and who these women are having sex with. So some

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Speaker 1: people will say if this is a long term relationship,

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Speaker 1: women might feel differently than if they're just having some

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Speaker 1: one night stands. But what he finds is that the

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Speaker 1: women who are having unprotected sex are much happier than

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Speaker 1: the women who use condoms when they have sex and

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Speaker 1: the women who abstained from sex altogether. And an article

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Speaker 1: and Scientific American points out that there have been similar

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Speaker 1: anecdotal findings among gay men who have anal intercourse without

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Speaker 1: condoms as well. So Gallops wondering what is going on here? Well,

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Speaker 1: and there are a lot of mood enhancing chemicals in semen,

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Speaker 1: such as cortisol which increases infection, affection, estrone which elevates mood, prolactin,

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Speaker 1: and antidepressant oxytocin, which elevates mood and is also released

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Speaker 1: during childbirth and breastfeeding, another antidepressant called birotropin releasing hormone

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Speaker 1: melatonin which helps you sleep, and even serotonin, which you

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Speaker 1: know we all know from even just a cursory knowledge

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Speaker 1: of antidepressants. So basically, what he thinks is that since

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Speaker 1: the skin in the vagina is so thin, that these

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Speaker 1: chemicals are able to seep into the skin and elevate

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Speaker 1: the mood of women who aren't using condoms. Now, before

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Speaker 1: we go any further, since we were talking all about

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Speaker 1: ejaculate inside of vaginal canals, Uh, this is not our

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Speaker 1: advertisement to start having sex without condoms. No, I would say,

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Speaker 1: the one thing that would make me really depressed would

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Speaker 1: be an unexpected baby or sexually transmitted disease exactly. And that,

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Speaker 1: like I said, that's why I brought up the fact

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Speaker 1: that he doesn't define what a relationship ship is among

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Speaker 1: these women. Perhaps these women are having unprotected sex because

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Speaker 1: they've been monogamous for years, with one partner um you know,

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Speaker 1: even though they were undergrads. He doesn't make no whether

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Speaker 1: they're married or not, so it's it's possible that, you know,

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Speaker 1: the women who aren't having sex are in really different

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Speaker 1: relationships and the women who aren't. And the study also

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Speaker 1: does not take into account what type of birth control

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Speaker 1: women were taking, So if you know someone has an

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Speaker 1: I U D, someone's got taking an oral contraceptive, it

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Speaker 1: could have different hormonal effects, right, But he does think

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Speaker 1: that this might it might help you understand perhaps the

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Speaker 1: breakup of a relationship in which you weren't using condoms,

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Speaker 1: because he notes that the women who didn't use condoms,

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Speaker 1: the longer they went without contact such contact with their partner,

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Speaker 1: the more depressed they got. So it kind of feeds

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Speaker 1: into this idea that love, particularly sexual love, might be

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Speaker 1: a drug because the women who weren't getting that regular

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Speaker 1: intake of the chemicals via the semen were showing depressive symptoms. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: essentially they were going into semen with role which sounds crazy,

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Speaker 1: but it might explain why if you're if you exit

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Speaker 1: a relationship where you weren't using condoms, you might be

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Speaker 1: more depressed about the breakup of it, and he posits

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Speaker 1: that those women are more likely to get into a

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Speaker 1: rebound relationship quicker than the women who did use condoms

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Speaker 1: during their relationships. So maybe now we have a point

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Speaker 1: in favor of using condoms protect your heart and your

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Speaker 1: health exactly, exactly, um. And the Scientific American article you cided,

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Speaker 1: christ and, like you said, brings up this idea of

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Speaker 1: anal sex between gay men and perhaps it might raise

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Speaker 1: happiness levels a lot more singing to be done on

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Speaker 1: that and obviously again a huge risk for sexually transparant disease.

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Speaker 1: But it brings up this really interesting um anthropological ritual

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Speaker 1: in Papua New Guinea where young boys andingest semen from

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Speaker 1: the older men in the village to become more masculine.

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Speaker 1: That's the reason they do it. But perhaps they're thinking

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Speaker 1: if they study the happiness of these boys, that they

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Speaker 1: might be happier as young boys ingesting all the semen

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Speaker 1: than other boy is. I mean, it's the way you

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Speaker 1: can take this sort of study result. It kind of

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Speaker 1: boggles the mind, kind of boggles the mind, and also

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Speaker 1: brings up the question what's a lesbian to do? Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, when I was reading all this, I kept

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Speaker 1: wondering if one day we'll see on the marketplace some

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Speaker 1: antidepressant that's marketed as like the semen antidepressant that everyone

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Speaker 1: can take to get the high um. Because you know,

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Speaker 1: if you didn't know about these studies results and you

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Speaker 1: heard that there is a semen antidepressant, I think that

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Speaker 1: you would just gag. But you know, maybe it's a

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Speaker 1: maybe it's maybe it's in the future. But also there

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Speaker 1: are plenty of you know, happiness triggers within the act

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Speaker 1: of sex. In general. We don't have to have semen

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Speaker 1: involved in our sexual activity in order for us to

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Speaker 1: get some kind of little dopamine or endorphin boost I

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Speaker 1: mean the or an orgasm in and of itself is

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Speaker 1: a powerful painkiller. For instance, thanks to oxytocin um. Beverly Whipple,

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Speaker 1: who's a noted sex researcher, has found that when women

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Speaker 1: will masturbate to you orgasm, their pain talents threshold and

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Speaker 1: pain detection threshold will increase significantly. In other words, it

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Speaker 1: makes us feel real gnass and there's no one else

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Speaker 1: in the room. Yeah, well except for in that case,

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Speaker 1: maybe a researcher, a lab worker, you and your sex

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Speaker 1: diary that you're going to turn over to the to

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Speaker 1: the researcher. Yeah. And you know, some of these studies,

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Speaker 1: like we said, this was a correlation that Gallup found,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of these studies about the link between

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Speaker 1: sex and happiness, and these studies that say something like,

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Speaker 1: you know, sex makes you more happy than a raise

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Speaker 1: from your job. We don't know if it's just happier

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Speaker 1: people who are the kinds that tend to have more sex,

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Speaker 1: or if you know, if it's correlation or causation. But

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Speaker 1: I will say whether it's correlation or causation. Dartmouth economists

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Speaker 1: have put a pretty high price on a healthy sex life.

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Speaker 1: They equated it to the amount of happiness generated by

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Speaker 1: getting an additional fifty dolls and dollars in income. So

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Speaker 1: that's a staggering, staggering price on a sex life. That's impressive. Um.

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Speaker 1: But again I think that the big takeaway as well,

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Speaker 1: this is all interesting, Um that semen has all this

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Speaker 1: perhaps medicinal uh antidepressant qualities. It's like we said, non

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Speaker 1: advertisement to engage in unprotected sex. In fact, if you

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Speaker 1: are trying to avoid pregnancy. One more thing that is

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Speaker 1: in semen uh follicle stimulating hormone and lutinizing hormone, and

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Speaker 1: these are the hormones that spur ovulation in a woman.

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Speaker 1: And what scientific American posits is that, uh, these female

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Speaker 1: hormones are in semen because when the male has sex

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Speaker 1: with the woman, evolutionarily speaking, he needs to make sure

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Speaker 1: that it's productive in terms of having a child, so

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Speaker 1: he releases these hormones to increase the chances that she

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Speaker 1: will have a child and to app the chances that

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Speaker 1: he will father a child and continue his line. So

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Speaker 1: unprotected sex not only leads to babies just because the

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Speaker 1: seam the sperm can get of it, because the semen

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Speaker 1: is actively encouraging your egg to come meet with the sperm.

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Speaker 1: And some people have an allergy to semen. That's true,

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Speaker 1: this does exist, it's pretty rare, but you might actually

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Speaker 1: develop over time analogy to your partner's semen um. So

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Speaker 1: just another thing to pay attention to. And scientists have

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Speaker 1: also found a link between semen and uterine cancer. So

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Speaker 1: it's a mixed bag right now. It seems like what

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Speaker 1: gets highlighted in the media every time the story gets

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Speaker 1: rehashed is oh my gosh, semen, it makes us so happy.

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Speaker 1: But we do have these smaller studies out here. They're saying,

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Speaker 1: you know what, it's not. It's not all great, but

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Speaker 1: this is all a mixed bag of correlations to even

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Speaker 1: the stuff between sex making you happier, semen causing cancer,

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Speaker 1: all this stuff and nothing is definitive. As Gordon gallup

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Speaker 1: the semen makes you happier study author himself said, the

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Speaker 1: data are merely suggestive, and it also makes for great

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Speaker 1: uh great party talk. Your next cocktail conversation right here.

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Speaker 1: There you go. You're welcome in advance, and we're not

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Speaker 1: responsible if you lose friends as a result of talking

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Speaker 1: about semen at parties. But it is something interesting to

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Speaker 1: think about and also interesting to think about all of

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Speaker 1: the the as Salon calls it, the rich chemical brine

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Speaker 1: that is semen and again not just sperm, not just sperm.

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Speaker 1: Is that the T shirt waiting to happen? Do you think?

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Speaker 1: Not one that I will wear? But uh, who knows,

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe one day when it becomes an antidepressant ingredient. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: I should stop talking and perhaps read some listener mail. Kristen,

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Speaker 1: I have one here from Aaron and it's about an

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Speaker 1: older podcast on a debutantes and she writes, as a

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Speaker 1: former deb I was really thankful that you tried to

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Speaker 1: spell the myth about the deb attitude and persona. My

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Speaker 1: mother had not been a debt before me. My older

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Speaker 1: sister was, which was how I came to be invited.

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Speaker 1: Even though it was not one excited about being a debutante.

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Speaker 1: I did because the money that my family spent and

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Speaker 1: that the organized organization raised went to a good cause,

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Speaker 1: namely the local children's hospital. I know it's been around

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Speaker 1: a year and a half since the episode air, but

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Speaker 1: I don't want to put in my two cents about

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Speaker 1: the modern purpose of the ball. When I was going

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Speaker 1: through the ball preparation parties during my freshman year of college,

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Speaker 1: one of the points that was constantly make clear to

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Speaker 1: us girls was that the ball was a celebration of

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Speaker 1: our achievements and not a marriage mark. Also this is

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Speaker 1: this was a celebration of our escorts achievements. So the

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Speaker 1: ball was not just for the girls families, but also

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Speaker 1: for the boys. It was because of this that we

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Speaker 1: had to choose an escort whould graduated high school in

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Speaker 1: our year or ahead of us. So thank you for

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Speaker 1: that perspective. Aaron I've got an email here from Josh

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Speaker 1: and this isn't a response to our episode on cat calling,

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Speaker 1: and he writes, I am a man and I get

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Speaker 1: cat called. I walk most places on foot, and I

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Speaker 1: probably don't get as many cat calls as a pretty

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Speaker 1: young lady. But I just want to point out that

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Speaker 1: it happens the other way too. I hear it from

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Speaker 1: women as much as men. I just got a cat

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Speaker 1: called today from a couple of young ladies, which, along

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Speaker 1: with your podcast that I just heard, inspired me to

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Speaker 1: write this message to you. As for how it makes

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Speaker 1: me feel, there's a range of motions for men too.

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Speaker 1: Is it scary about as much as someone honking their horn,

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Speaker 1: maybe a little bit more. Anytime someone is paying attention

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Speaker 1: to you as a pedestrian, you instinctively go on guard.

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Speaker 1: It's also a little bit flattering, and I find it

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter the appearance or gender of the cat call.

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Speaker 1: I've never actually cat called anyone myself. I find it

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Speaker 1: perfectly understandable why men cat call, though, since I've felt

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Speaker 1: the urge to. When you've seen an attractive person on

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Speaker 1: the street, sometimes it stirs up emotions, and cat calling

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Speaker 1: is just a way to express that well. If you

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Speaker 1: have an email to send our way our addresses mom

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Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com. Or to get

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Speaker 1: in touch with us even faster, you can head over

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Speaker 1: to Facebook and Twitter. Follow us there at Mom's Stuff podcast,

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Speaker 1: and during the week you can read our blog It's

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Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told You. And if you want to

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Speaker 1: learn more about the topic of happiness, unrelated to seem

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Speaker 1: a because there is plenty more out there that can

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Speaker 1: make you happy like this podcast, I suggest heading over

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Speaker 1: to a library worth of articles at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,

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Speaker 1: Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as

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Speaker 1: we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.

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