SEX DATA

SEX DATA
The Stuff You always Wanted to Know!

June 26, 02: Semen makes women happy! That's the remarkable conclusion of a study comparing women whose partners wear condoms with those whose partners don't. Women whose partners don't use condoms are less likely to feel down. Scientists at the State University of New York suspect the mood-altering hormones are absorbed through the vagina and make women feel good (but they stressed that their results are not an excuse for unprotected sex. The results will appear in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.).
. . The study, which is bound to provoke controversy, showed that the women who were directly exposed to semen were less depressed. The researchers think this is because mood-altering hormones in semen are absorbed through the vagina. They say they have ruled out other explanations.
. . The researchers assessed the moods of 300 female students using a standard questionnaire. A score of more than 17 was considered moderately depressed.
. . The team assessed their happiness using the Beck Depression Inventory, a standard questionnaire for assessing mood. People who score over 17 are considered moderately depressed. The team also found that depressive symptoms and suicide attempts were more common among women who used condoms regularly compared with those who didn't.
. . Women whose partners never used condoms scored about eight on the test while those who never had sex without condoms scored 11.3. Women who weren't having sex at all scored about 13.5. Depression in the students who sometimes or never used condoms was more severe the longer they went without sex. [surprise, surprise!]
. . In fact, the results aren't a complete surprise because semen does contain several mood-altering hormones, including testosterone, oestrogen, follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinising hormone, prolactin and several different prostaglandins. Some of these have been detected in a women's blood within hours of exposure to semen.
. . The scientists said they looked at other factors, such as the use of oral contraceptives, frequency of sex and personality type, but found that none could account for the findings. The results are not a complete surprise because scientists know that semen contains several mood-altering hormones including testosterone. The scientists suspect semen will have the same effect on women regardless of how they get it.
. . The question many people will ask is whether oral sex could have the same mood-enhancing effects. "Since the steroids in birth control pills survive the digestion process, I would assume that the same holds true for at least some of the chemicals in semen", Gallup says. Further research will be needed to confirm whether exposure to semen through oral or anal sex really does affect mood in heterosexual or homosexual partners.
. . "It makes no sense to me for this phenomenon to have evolved", says Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. But Gallup counters that men whose semen promotes long-term mood enhancement might have more chances to indulge in sexual activity. There's more to being a "fun guy" than you thought!

Worldwide, 10% of men are circumsized.

The mean age of menopause is 51 years, but a woman may experience her final menstrual period as early as 41 or as late as 59.
From one perspective, sex differences boil down to different levels of the same hormones. Both sexes make androgen using the same cellular pathways. An enzyme called aromatase converts half of a woman's daily androgen production of 300 micrograms to estrogen and only about a quarter of a percent of a man's 7,000 micrograms of daily androgen to estrogen. Also, eleven different promoters in the aromatase gene can turn on the estrogen-converting enzyme in specific tissues, such as the brain, the breast, or the prostate. "A given tissue can create its own estrogen environment when the androgen arrives there from the circulating blood."
Genetically, in humans and other mammals, sex differences boil down to a mismatched set of chromosomes. Men and women have in common 22 pairs of the puffy, cinch-waisted blobs called chromosomes. What's different is the 23rd set, the sex-determining chromosomes, which are named "X" and "Y." Women usually have two Xs; men typically have an X paired with a Y.
. . Y chromosome was discovered to be the key to maleness in 1959, it languished under the palling weight of scientific apathy. Amid 45 other human chromosomes, all generous sausages stuffed with genes, the Y is the runt of the human genome. Page estimates 22 genes are now known on the Y. Its X partner, on the other hand, may house as many as 3,000 genes, including those that code for muscle development, blood clotting, and color vision. "In elaborations of Judaic writings, there were proscriptions exempting from circumcision boys whose maternal uncles died at circumcision," Page says. "They recognized hemophilia as an X-linked disorder thousands of years ago."
. . For a couple of days, more than seven months before the birth of each baby boy, the Y turns on the male gender switch, starting the cascade of events leading to growth of the male sex organs, hormone production, and male behavior.
. . Turtles and alligators have the two sexes but no sex chromosomes; sons and daughters are determined by the egg incubation temperatures. For that matter, living creatures really don't need two sexes to have two parents. All the benefits of gene swapping conceivably could come from two individuals of a single gender, such as in baker's yeast, whose gametes look identical.
. . XX males actually carry the tiny piece of the Y chromosome that turns on the male switch in the embryo. It also explained the unusual occurrence of XY females, who they found were missing the same piece.

Genes on the Y chromosome: The genes readily sorted into two classes. Some code for proteins expressed in only testes, where sperm is made. The other category of genes makes proteins needed in all cells. Known as "housekeeping" genes, they have nearly identical counterparts on the X chromosome.
. . Turner syndrome: often fatal in the womb, females who are born with only one X chromosome suffer short stature, infertility, and defects in many organs. Yet males seemed to survive with one X. The newly discovered housekeeping genes on the Y suggested people need at least two copies of several genes, either on both Xs or on the X and Y.

Sept 2, 03: Brazilian women care more about their appearance than any other women in the world, with half prepared to undergo plastic surgery to keep their looks, a recent study shows. In Brazil, where being called "vain" is often a compliment suggesting self-respect, 86 percent of women said they tried extremely hard to improve their looks compared with an average of 67 percent worldwide, according to the 2003 global women's survey by cosmetics company Avon. Ninety percent of Brazilian women classified beauty products as an essential rather than a luxury, compared with an average of 77 percent worldwide, Avon said, citing its survey of 21,000 women in 24 countries.

ENERGY BUDGET OF SPERMATOZOA

A. Mitochondria convert Fructose, Sorbitol and GPC to Energy (ATP)
a. ATP used to move tail
B. Plasmalogen (lipid) is an energy reserve in spermatozoa
a. Used when other energy sources are limited

Metabolism:
a. Fructose: used under anaerobic and aerobic conditions
b. Sorbitol and GPC: used only aerobically
c. GPC: utilized after it's split into choline and glycerylphosphate by an enzyme in female tract

According to the Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids (Paul Spinard, 1994), the average man produces about 3.5 mL of semen per ejaculation whose nutritional value is: less than 1 calorie
  • 150 mg. protien
  • 11 mg. carbohydrates
  • 6 mg. fat.
  • 3 mg. cholesterol
  • 7% US RDA potassium
  • 3% US RDA copper
  • 3% US RDA zinc
  • 300 million spermatoza

    (Someday men will have to have all this tattooed to the side of their hip, like a can of Coke or a box of Wheaties.)

    It looks healthy enough per serving size, but when compared to breast milk (which has about 170 calories per cup), semen has about 40% more calories (about 230 calories per cup). High levels of fructose (fruit sugar!) is normal in the semen and this sugar comes almost entirely from the seminal vesicles.

    For the "average" man, the ejaculate contains over 80 million sperm. In addition to the little wiggly things, semen contains (taken from several web sites):
  • water
  • ascorbic acid (vitamin C)
  • blood-group antigens
  • calcium (yes, just like milk!)
  • chlorine (add your own little contribution to cleanliness!)
  • cholesterol (Is this the "bad cholesterol" or "good cholesterol"?)
  • citric acid, creatine, deoxyribonucleic acid, fructose, glutathione, hyaluronidase, inositol, lactic acid, magnesium, nitrogen,
  • phosphorus and potassium (what do you know, these are good for fertilization too!)
  • prostaglandins (fatty acids that, while not a hormone, perform hormone-like functions)
  • purine, pyrimidine, pyruvic acid
  • sodium (good to have, especially if you've been sweating a lot)
  • sorbitol, spermidine, spermine
  • vitamin B12 and zinc (you would think it's a multivitamin).
    Penis Fun Facts
  • Average volume of semen per ejaculation: 1-2 teaspoons
  • Average number of times a man will ejaculate in his lifetime: 7,200
  • Average total amount of lifetime ejaculate: 18 quarts
  • Average speed of ejaculation: 28 miles per hour (young man)
  • Its muscle drives nature's only known rotary-joint. The tail SCREWS, not whips, as "flagella" seems to say. (no pun)
  • Average number of calories in a teaspoon of semen: 7
  • Average length of a penis when not erect: 3.5 inches
  • Average length of penis when erect: 5.5
  • Smallest human penis recorded: 5/8 of an inch
  • Largest human penis ever recorded: 13 inches
  • Largest penis in the animal kingdom: 11 feet - Blue Whale
  • Most arousing time of day and year for a man: early morning – Fall
  • No, there's no correlation between the size of a man's hands, feet, and nose to the size of his penis –-penis size is related to genetics.
  • Smokers have smaller erections than non-smokers
  • Average duration of orgasm: 4 seconds
  • Average number of sperm cells in the ejaculate of a healthy man: 200 to 600 million
  • The origin of the word 'penis' comes from Latin meaning 'tail'.
  • Masters and Johnson estimate that 3 men out of 1,000 can perform self-fellatio
  • Average number of erections per day: 11
  • Average number of erections during the night: 9
  • Distance sperm travels to fertilize an egg: 3-4 inches
  • Sperm lifespan: 2.5 months from development to ejaculation
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