6 (or more!) Good Reasons to Have More Sex

http://www.alternet.org/sex/149666/6_go ... _more_sex/
6 Good Reasons to Have More Sex
According to studies, sex helps with sleep, mood, and health.
January 27, 2011 |
This piece first appeared on EcoSalon. http://ecosalon.com/6-best-reasons-to-have-more-sex/

1. Sex helps relieve pain.
Sex releases the fun-time hormone, oxytocin. And as WebMD reports, “as the hormone oxytocin surges, endorphins increase, and pain declines.

2. For the ladies! Semen may be an anti-depressant.
Sex produces phenylethylamine, a love chemical that ups your mood. Also, a study http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... ssant.html from the State University of New York shows that women who were directly exposed to semen were less depressed.

3. For the gents! Sex may reduce the risk of prostate cancer.
Via WebMD, Australian researchers report that frequent ejaculations among 20-something men downs the risk for prostate cancer in later years by as much as a third.

4. Sex is a good workout.
Want to know exactly how many calories you are burning? Check out this handy estimator. http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

5. Sex can help keep colds at bay.
Researchers have shown that people who have sex more than twice a week get a kick to their immune system. Immunoglobulin A fights colds in our bodies, and sex raises its levels in our bodies.

6. Sex helps you sleep.
The oxytocin released during an orgasm is going to help your brain and body wind down for a good night’s sleep. So considering turning away the Ambien and turning towards your loved one.

http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/ ... its-of-sex
10 Surprising Health Benefits of Sex
1. Sex Relieves Stress
2. Sex Boosts Immunity
3. Sex Burns Calories
4. Sex Improves Cardiovascular Health
5. Sex Boosts Self-Esteem
6. Sex Improves Intimacy
7. Sex Reduces Pain
8. Sex Reduces Prostate Cancer Risk
9. Sex Strengthens Pelvic Floor Muscles
10. Sex Helps You Sleep Better

The Viking wrote: OK, on number 2. If semen is an anti depressant, then why, when I have a build up of it for weeks, do I get more depressed?? I'm not buying that one!

The tablespoon of semen you keep inside you just isn't concentrated enough to overcome your increasing feelings of loneliness and inadequacy.

HappyNewYear wrote: I think you have to swallow it.

Won't work. And I don't think Viking is that flexible! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenethylamine

Pharmacology
Phenethylamine, similarly to amphetamine, acts as a releasing agent of norepinephrine and dopamine.[3][4][5] However when taken orally it is rapidly metabolized.[6]

major bean wrote: Sex boost immunity? The reason is that the female body reacts with an immune system attack after sex with a new sex partner. This causes symptoms very similar to a mild illness for a few days. After that her body is "used" to the sperm of that particular donor. Multiple sex partners or serial sex partners causes quite a stress on the immune system of the female.

The semen is interpreted by the female body as foreign matter and is treated the same as if it were a splinter. Immunity is established for that particular partner and all is well. Multiple sexual partners keep the female body in a state of immunity upheaval. Maybe this is not taught in sex education? I do know that it would be taught in advanced courses in immunology.

That's not entirely accurate. A splinter breaches the epithelial barrier and triggers immune responses from inside the body - specifically immune cells circulating in the blood and lymph. The surface of the skin is not meant to be breached at all and elicits a swift and strong immune response. If the female body reacted to semen that way, we would all be sterile and have gone extinct long ago - the immune system evolved special conditions for dealing with the specialized circumstances of the uterus - it's interior but continually has outside substances introduced. The immune response involved here is surface based, and thus uses different components of the immune system. Multiple partners is a risk because of the increased statistical probability that you will eventually come into contact with someone who is infected with an STD, but not because of the sex or semen itself. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1782486/

The female reproductive tract is immunologically versatile as evidenced by its ability to generate protective immunity to infectious agents while tolerating semen and the semi-allogeneic conceptus in pregnancy. Semen contains several male gamete-specific antigens and paternal major histocompatibility complex (MHC) antigens1,2 and comprises a regular and substantial challenge to the cervical and uterine mucosa. However, insemination generally occurs without eliciting immunity to male transplantation or other antigens which would be incompatible with tolerance to future mating events and subsequent reproductive success.
Consistent with this, unusual populations of regulatory lymphocytes with suppressive functions are present in the uterus15,16 and observations in rodents suggest that exposure to semen can cause hypo-responsiveness in type 1 immunity to paternal MHC antigens.17,18
This hypothesis also allows the possibility that semen has a role in initiating the immune responses required to accommodate pregnancy, since many of the same antigens are shared by semen and the conceptus. Exposure to semen is now recognized as beneficial in in vitro fertilization pregnancies19 and protective in pre-eclampsia and other pathologies of pregnancy.20 One potential mechanism explaining the benefits of semen in pregnancy is that insemination leads to activation and expansion of lymphocyte populations that are causally linked with those that later facilitate embryo implantation.21

Interestingly, there are cases of women who are allergic to semen itself - an inflammatory reaction to the components of the semen; luckily this is a rarely occurring condition.

major bean wrote: The chances of prostate cancer is increased with the number of sexual partners of the male,

So far the research indicates that increasing numbers of sexual partners does increase risk, but that the greater the frequency of sex, especially in the 20s, the lower the prostate cancer risk.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all ... ate-cancer

In medical research, the larger the study, the more valid the results are likely to be. The studies showing that sex increases prostate cancer risk involved a few hundred men. The study showing that sex reduces risk involved 29,000.

But if sex reduces risk of prostate cancer, it's only protective if men avoid sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Many studies show that a history of STIs, especially gonorrhea and syphilis, approximately doubles prostate cancer risk. It's not entirely clear how STIs spur development of prostate cancer, but these infections cause inflammation, which apparently triggers or accelerates cancerous cell changes.

Many studies have linked frequency of sex and an increasing number of sex partners to increased risk of STIs. It now seems likely that it's the STIs, not sex per se, that increases prostate cancer risk in the studies showing that finding. The large study tracked ejaculations, but did not distinguish between those that occurred during partner sex and masturbation.

major bean wrote: as the virus that caused warts (cancer) in the female also causes prostate cancer in the male.

As to HPV causing prostate cancer: there is no link that has been found, other than that HPV has been isolated from a small, but statistically significant number of prostate cancer cells. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/A+prostat ... a054130630 No causation can be established by that correlation though. The HPV strains (there are over 100) that cause the warts, which are not cancerous, are not the same strains that cause cancer. So far HPV has been linked to causing cervical, penile, anal, neck, and head cancers - not prostate.
http://www.fhcrc.org/about/pubs/center_ ... sart3.html
No evidence of HPV connection to prostate cancer
August 22, 2003

The largest-ever study to determine whether a well-known cancer-causing virus is a risk factor for prostate cancer has found no connection between the two. According to new Public Health Sciences Division research, infection with human papillomavirus (HPV), which has been linked to genital and anal cancers, doesn't increase a man's changes of developing prostate cancer.

Although prostate cancer shares some risk factors with cervical, vaginal and anal cancers-tumors known to be strongly associated with prior infection with subtypes of the human papillomavirus (HPV)-researchers found no evidence for a link between viral strains known as HPV-16 and HPV-18 and prostate cancer.

"Several prior studies have reported a positive association between serological evidence of HPV infection and prostate cancer, but there were concerns about study methodology and limited study sizes," she said. "Our study is the largest conducted to date to assess the potential role of HPV-16 and HPV-18 in relation to risk of prostate cancer." While all of the approximately 100 HPV subtypes can cause the growth of abnormal cells, usually only the high-risk variety-which include HPV-16 and HPV-18-are linked to cancer.

http://www.cdc.gov/std/HPV/STDFact-HPV-and-men.htm
HPV and Men - Fact Sheet

some types of HPV can cause genital warts. Other types can cause penile, anal, or head and neck cancers. The types of HPV that can cause genital warts are not the same as the types that can cause cancer. Anal cancer is not the same as colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer is more common than anal cancer, but it is not caused by HPV.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 20408/full
Human prostate cancer risk factors
Article first published online: 19 OCT 2004
DOI: 10.1002/cncr.20408

This review is a contemporary and comprehensive, literature-based analysis of the genetic and environmental risk factors for human prostate cancer. It emphasizes all aspects of our current understanding of risk, including epidemiology, pathology, animal and cell culture models, biomarkers of exposure, and mechanisms of risk exposure. Substantial gaps exist in the data regarding each of these aspects of risk, limiting our understanding of the complex mechanisms that contribute to the greatest cancer epidemic of our time.

major bean wrote: Self esteem? That also has a direct relationship to the number of sexual partners. The lower the self esteem; the more sexual partners.

This is too simplistic an explanation. High self-esteem can mean that women are comfortable with themselves and their bodies and seek out pleasure on a more frequent basis as they feel no guilt and see no problem with enjoying life. Low self-esteem can mean that either a woman lets herself be used often, or it could mean that she doesn't even seek out intimate contact - for example, the shy, nice, quiet, smart girl in the corner. Plus societal attitudes play a role. Do you know of a large-scale study which quantifies these cases? This is what I found:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t777513504557w67/
Self-esteem and sexual behavior: Exploring gender differences
Sex Roles Volume 25, Numbers 7-8, 441-450, 1991 DOI: 10.1007/BF00292533

Abstract: Previous studies have shown that the relationship between sexual permissiveness and self-esteem fluctuates with the social climate. The present study found that high self-esteem males and females had a significantly greater number of sexual partners than low self-esteem subjects.
The relationship between self-esteem and sexual behavior fluctuates over time as social norms relating to acceptable and unacceptable behavior change. In the 1960s, Stratton and Spritzer (1967) hypothesized that sexual permissiveness was deviant, and individuals holding attitudes that departed from acceptable standards would have low self-esteem. Their hypothesis was confirmed: the most attitudinally sexually permissive subjects were lower on self-esteem that their more socially conforming subjects. In the more sexually permissive 1970s, the self-esteem/sexual permissive attitudes relationship reversed. Perlman (1974) found that high self-esteem subjects reported significantly more coital partners than did low self-esteem subjects. A later study (MacCorquodale & DeLamater, 1979) found no significant differences between high and low self-esteem subjects on number of coital partners for either males or females.

As the attitudinal trends have only continued toward more permissiveness , it would stand to reason that the number of partners for low versus high self-esteem subjects would have remained statistically insignificant through the 80s, 90s, and 00's.

major bean wrote: As a sidebar: fellatio introduces bacteria into the urinary tract. This causes bubos at the beltline of males and inner thighs. Eventually this can cause cancer of the urinary tract. There is a similar causal effect with cunnilingus for the female

I can't find any evidence to support the claim that fellatio or cunnilingus introduces bacteria to the urinary tract and causes cancer of the bladder or urinary tract. http://www.emedicinehealth.com/bladder_ ... ge2_em.htm How would fellatio introduce bacteria to the urinary tract, unless indirectly through the bloodstream via an open sore in the mouth (it wouldn't survive the acidic pH of the stomach)? Do you have a source for this info so I could check it out? This was the only obvious info I found on oral sex and transmission of STDs (there's stuff on oral transmission of HIV too, but I'm not including that here):
http://sti.bmj.com/content/74/2/95.full.pdf
Oral sex and transmission of non-viral STIs.
Sex Transm Infect 1998 74: 95-100
S Edwards and C Carne
doi: 10.1136/sti.74.2.95

Objectives: To review the literature on the role of oral sex in the transmission of non-viral sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
Conclusions: Oral sex is a common sexual practice between both heterosexual and homosexual couples. Oro-genital sex is implicated as a route of transmission for gonorrhoea, syphilis, Chlamydia
trachomatis, chancroid, and Neisseria meningitidis. Other respiratory organisms such as streptococci, Haemophilus influenzae, and Mycoplasma pneumoniae could also be transmitted by this route. Fellatio confers risk for acquisition of infection by the oral partner. Cunnilingus appears to predispose to recurrent vaginal candidiasis although the mechanism for this is unclear, while a link between oro-genital sex and bacterial vaginosis is currently being studied. Oro-anal sex is implicated in the transmission of various enteric infections. In view of the increased practice of oral sex this has become a more important potential route of transmission for oral, respiratory, and genital pathogens.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5341a2.htm


Well, this thread just got a whole lot less fun, didn't it? lol Just skip back to the top and try to think of other suggestions to help Viking with his depression! :thumbsup: The poor guy...