I was in an airport heading home from a business trip when I heard about the shooting of students at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Most of the victims were first graders and I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut. My own first grader was miles away from me at a similar suburban elementary school that could just as easily have been targeted. The only consolation was the collective outrage and glimmer of hope that we would finally do something about gun control. I guess my reasoning was that with the most innocent victims having been gunned down in their classroom, the standard NRA rhetoric would no longer be enough.
I was wrong.
Last week, 19 kids and 2 adults in Uvalde, Texas were killed by a teenager with an assault rifle. It was the 27th school shooting this year. The wake of this tragedy has proved only that the rhetoric is alive and well. Republican politicians want to talk about mental health crises, bullying, and bad parenting, but they don’t want to talk about the fact that the shooter was too young to buy a beer but had no problem legally purchasing a military grade weapon. Sure, they may be backing off of the good guy with a gun argument after stories of the botched response by the local police force emerged, but the NRA conference went off as planned up the road in Houston (albeit with fewer country music acts). Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz were among those who promised to protect the 2nd amendment.
I’ve spent the week vacillating between despair and rage. The same people who use “protect the children” as a reason to ban abortion, books, and sex ed, are willing to let kids be sitting ducks in their classrooms because they’re afraid of a tiny minority of heavily armed voters. They should be ashamed of themselves and we should vote them all out.
Nope, Drinking Husband’s Spooge Will Not Improve Fertility
Kourtney Kardashian and new-husband Travis Barker are apparently having difficulty conceiving despite the fact that they already have six children between them. On last week’s episode of The Kardashians, the couple documented their challenges with IVF and the medically dubious advice they are following in an effort to have a child together. While most of the discussion involved the advice of an Ayurvedic guru name Martha who put them on an ancient cleanse (no alcohol, no caffeine, no sex, no working out), Kourtney mentioned a “fertility doctor” who told her to “drink” Travis’ sperm four times a week to improve her chances of getting pregnant.
Kourtney was light on the specifics of this advice. She didn’t name the doctor. She didn’t say whether by drink she meant simply swallowing during oral sex or ingesting full 8 oz. glasses several times a week. She also didn’t say much about why the doctor thought this would be helpful except that he’d mentioned her thyroid rates were either too high or too low. This leaves us with a lot of guess work and unpacking to do, but right off the bat I can tell you: that’s not how it f**king works.
Let’s start with the one kernel of truth that I can find buried in this off-handed remark: thyroid function does affect fertility in both men and women. The thyroid is a gland located in the front of the neck, just below the voice box. It releases hormones that control metabolism. Hyperthyroidism is a condition in which the thyroid makes too much of these hormones and hypothyroidism can happen if it doesn’t make enough.
In sperm producers, hyperthyroidism has been associated with reduced semen volume, reduced sperm density, reduced sperm motility (swimming), and changes in the size and shape of the sperm. Hypothyroidism is most often linked with changes in the size and shape of sperm. In the egg set, an overactive thyroid is most often associated with a higher risk of miscarriage or premature birth. An underactive thyroid is linked to these outcomes as well, but can also cause an interruption in the menstrual cycle and ovulation which would make it more difficult to get pregnant (or retrieve eggs for IVF).
The solution for an under- or over- active thyroid is not found in semen. Some experts suggest that foods rich in iodine (like seaweed), selenium (like macadamia nuts), or both (like yogurt) could improve thyroid hormone levels. While semen does contain some nutrients, iodine and selenium are not on the list, which might be why guzzling jiz is not considered a treatment for either low or high thyroid levels. The standard treatment for low thyroid levels is daily use of a synthetic hormone. Treatments for hyperthyroidism include taking radioactive iodine or an anti-thyroid medication that prevents the gland from making too much hormone.
Some experts tried to find another kernel of truth in Kourtney’s comments by looking at a 2019 study from the Netherlands that showed young women who had oral sex with their partner were less likely to have a miscarriage. Researchers looked at a small sample of women under 36 who had had at least three consecutive miscarriages with the same partner. They then matched them with a control group of the same age who’d had successful pregnancies and asked a lot of questions.
Among other things, the researchers found that only 57% of those who had miscarriages reported oral sex with their partner compared to 73% of the control group. The researchers said this could be a sign that oral sex is protective and then did a bit of an analysis tap dance. First, they noted other research that suggests a strong immune response to the developing fetus might be the of miscarriages. Then the researchers posited that oral sex exposed the mother to antigens in the partner’s semen which helped them build a tolerance and made a strong immune response to the fetus less likely.
This might be true but this one study of 97 women that found a correlation definitely doesn’t prove that it is. Correlation does not equal causation. Moreover, there are many explanations of why people who have already experienced miscarriages might have more miscarriages that have nothing to do with whether they spit, swallowed, or didn’t go down in the first place.
In truth, most of the research I found on the “benefits” of swallowing semen fall into the same “maybe but this doesn’t prove anything” category. A 2003 study, for example, appears to link oral sex to lower risk of preeclampsia (a pregnancy condition that can cause dangerously high blood pressure) but other things were linked to a lower risk too, like living with your partner for more than a year. While there is also some proof that semen contains beneficial ingredients like melatonin, spermidine, oxytocin, and prolactin—there is little research to confirm that ingesting it will provide the sleep, mood, or liver function benefits often associated with these substances.
I take no formal position on spitting or swallowing. It is definitely a matter of personal preference, but if anybody—whether it’s a boyfriend making an argument for more fellatio or a Kardashian spewing medical misinformation—tells you there’s a scientific reason for ingesting the stuff, know that you’re being s’punked.
J.D. Vance Joins Republican War on Porn
Author-turned-politician J.D. Vance is running for the Senate on an anti-liberal, anti-woke, pro-Trump platform that apparently includes a desire to ban porn. In a 2021 interview with a Catholic magazine, the Ohio Republican candidate admitted he would like to see an outright ban on pornography.
Vance, author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, seems to have moved farther to the right (and toward Trump) in recent years. In 2016, he called Trump an idiot and referred to him as American Hitler. Today, he believes that Trump is the best president of his lifetime and instead rails against the “childless left”—like AOC, Kamala Harris, and Corey Booker—who want to brainwash other people’s children. He thinks America should support “pro-family” policies like those promoted by Hungary’s reigning autocrat Viktor Orbán, including tax breaks for families with multiple children and housing subsidies. (Those sound good but no American running for office should use Orbán—who isn’t so hot on free elections and has banned all things LGBTQ—as a political mentor.)
One of Vance’s most outrageous suggestions to date is the conspiracy theory that President Biden is purposefully flooding the heartland with opioids: “If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better to target them and their kids with this fentanyl.” He went on to say: “It does seem intentional, it’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him and opening up the floodgates to the border is one way to do that.” (Just to be clear, the opioid crisis predates the Biden presidency and got worse under Trump.)
His objections to pornography are apparently also grounded in a desire to protect traditional families. In the 2021 interview with Crisis Magazine he said:
“I think the combination of porn, abortion have basically created a lonely, isolated generation that isn’t getting married, they’re not having families, and they’re actually not even totally sure how to interact with each other.”
According to HuffPo, which unearthed the article, the author spoke with Vance after an event for young conservatives where he expressed opposition to birth control and a desire for a ban on porn.
While this might sound like further rantings of a Trumpian nutball, I’d like to remind us all that the 2016 Republican Platform (you know, the one the party passed at the same convention where it nominated a guy who paid hush money to a porn star) declared porn a public health crisis. The 2020 Republican Platform (you know, the one the party passed at the same convention where it yet again nominated a guy who had paid hush money to a porn star) supports states in their efforts to fight against porn as a way to protect the children.
Porn is not a public health issue. It’s actually one form of sexual activity that carries no risk of pregnancy or STIs. Despite ideological arguments to the contrary, there is no proof that porn is addictive. In addition, there’s a large body of research that suggests that increased access to porn actually lowers the rates of violence and sexual assault.
Research into the effects of X-rated viewing on marriages is mixed. One long-term study found that people who started watching porn in between waves of data collection were more likely to get divorced. While the author feels that the study shows a causal connection, it seems equally likely that the marriage got worse in between data waves and porn viewing was a symptom of the relationship issues, not the cause. (“Oh Really? Well that symptom is f**king my wife.”) This would align with other studies that have found a vicious cycle in which relationship problems lead to porn use which makes the relationship worse.
In good relationships, however, porn might not be a problem. A larger survey found that most people who watch porn or whose partner’s watch porn don’t think there’s a negative impact on their relationship. Moreover, a 2020 study found that watching porn together improved sexual intimacy.
Porn is by no means all good. I hate that it’s the default sex educator of many children and think that too much of it depicts women enjoying violence and degradation. The solution, however, is not to ban it—it’s to educate adults and young people alike about the difference between fantasy and reality, the importance of consent, and healthy vs. non-healthy uses of porn and erotica.
I keep thinking of the line in Hamilton, “Look, when Britain taxed our tea, we got frisky. Imagine what gon' happen when you try to tax our whisky…”
Republicans like porn. While blue state residents do watch a little more porn, Pornhub data show that red states like Kansas (194), Texas (139), and Oklahoma (126) rank near the top in pageviews per capita. Ohio, where Vance is running for Senate, ranks somewhere in the middle with 119 pageviews per capita. I wonder how these porn-viewing Ohioans feel about a Senatorial candidate who’d force them to stop. Perhaps they’ll get frisky?