The place where male fantasy and medical advice meet.

[Ali]

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/07/morning_sickness_can_more_sex_help_.single.html

Snipped for brevity's sake.  Prior to this part, they were talking about the theories that morning sickness is an evolutionary adaptation to prevent the mother's immune system from kicking out the baby, or to prevent the mom from ingesting (or at least keeping down) stuff that could be bad for the baby.  Some dude named "Gallup" disagrees.  Now for the fun part:

So what does Gallup say is the real culprit behind nausea and vomiting in early pregnancy? Semen. More specifically, unfamiliar semen. To understand where he's coming from, we need to think back to the maternal immune system's response to the fetus. Because half of the DNA the fetus is carrying comes from the father, the mother's body may initially treat the organism as foreign tissue or an infection. This response, Gallup says, triggers an immune reaction that is commonly experienced as nausea, vomiting, and malaise (aka morning sickness). The best cure for this type of sickness, says Gallup, is, strangely enough, the same thing as its cause. The more exposure a woman has to her partner's semen—that is to say, the more often she's inseminated prior to conception and during the early stages of the pregnancy—the more tolerance her body develops to his genetic material. This tolerance generalizes to a tolerance for the fetus and leads to successful maternal immunosuppression—and subsequently allows her to feel less like an infected zombie with serious stomach troubles.

Here is where Gallup's reputation as an innovative—if often highly speculative—evolutionary theorist comes into the picture. Gallup surmises that pregnancy sickness is not itself an adaptation, but instead a side effect of a broader maternal adaptation for favoring the best possible mates. He suggests that this broader adaptation serves primarily to facilitate reproduction with males that are likely to support mother and child (in evolutionary terms, to invest in the offspring), while weeding out the players. In previous work, Gallup has shown that women are more likely to develop preeclampsia—and thus have a higher infant mortality risk—in pregnancies resulting from unfamiliar semen. Historically, these would have included rape and "dishonest mating strategies" (tactics in which the man lies to the woman about his long-term intentions just to get into her pants) as well as unplanned conception occurring in a new, still-fragile relationship. From the point of view of Mother Nature's cold, cold heart, spontaneous abortions due to a reaction against unfamiliar semen might have been biologically adaptive. This is because conception and childbirth historically meant that a woman foreclosed on any other reproductive opportunities for 2 to 4 years, so pregnancies in which paternal investment was improbable would have meant an enormous gamble. Today, however, technological innovations such as barrier contraceptives (condoms reduce a woman's exposure to semen that would otherwise become familiar) and artificial insemination mimic some ancestral conditions. The maternal immune system has no way to distinguish between, say, conception by in vitro fertilization and rape.

Gallup's evolutionary reinterpretation of pregnancy sickness is quite new—so new, in fact, that it hasn't been put to a test.But at the 2012 meeting of the Northeastern Evolutionary Psychology Society in Plymouth, N.H., he and graduate student Jeremy Atkinson laid out a set of explicit predictions that, if borne out by data, would support their model and may lead scholarship away from the traditional embryo-protection account. First, the authors predict that the intensity of pregnancy sickness should be directly proportional to the frequency of insemination by the child's father. "Risk factors for morning sickness," they reason, "should include condom use, infrequent insemination, and not being in a committed relationship." In fact, Gallup and Atkinson believe that lesbians with little (if any) previous exposure to semen who are impregnated by artificial insemination should have some of the worst cases of nausea and vomiting. Also, pregnancy sickness should wane in severity from one consecutive pregnancy to the next, but only assuming that the same man sires each successive offspring. By contrast, a change in paternity between offspring should reinstate pregnancy sickness.

I love it.  An untested theory that ladies can prevent or treat morning sickness by just slathering themselves in their partner's (but ONLY their partner's!) semen.  Condoms as a risk factor.

Please tell me I'm not the only lady to give this "medical theory" a big old side eye.  Reminds me of when Husband tried to convince me that a doctor told him that his up-all-night insomnia could be cured by nightly "exercise."   

[Ihateyoumike]

I, for one, think we need more money being pumped into this research and also an awareness campaign.

[DeterminedJuliet]

I... don't even know, man.
Edit: On second thought, I had "all-day sickness" for about two months. If I had read this, I probably would have given it a try. haha.

[The Magic Pudding]

My wife and I practised quite a lot before we had children, it didn't seem to prevent morning sickness.
How does a father know that the woman's body is rejecting competitors semen and that a particular child is theirs anyway?

[jumbojak]

This reminds me of a study I saw a few years ago suggesting there were health benefits for women who ingest their partner's semen. If I am not mistaken there was a reduced risk of breast cancer. But a big part of me thinks the researchers were a bunch of perverts who guessed no one would do a follow up study. Imagine the ad for test subjects! You couldn't place it in the paper!

[Tank]

This reminds me of a study I saw a few years ago suggesting there were health benefits for women who ingest their partner's semen. If I am not mistaken there was a reduced risk of breast cancer. But a big part of me thinks the researchers were a bunch of perverts who guessed no one would do a follow up study. Imagine the ad for test subjects! You couldn't place it in the paper!

I used to be a rep for a components company and visited the labs at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. Now there was a TV programme that investigated the question of female stimulation by pornography. With a man they put a strain gauge around his penis. But how do you measure response in a woman? Well I happened to visit the lab and the technician that was given the job. The equipment turned out to be very simple it was a about the size of a medium cigar and contained a series of red LEDS set at 90 degrees to matching detectors. As the blood flow in the vaginal wall increased the amount of light passing between LED and detector increased; very simple. The guy admitted he'd got it working in 3 days but had claimed it had been terribly difficult to calibrate and as such had needed lots of volunteers to test the device on (which was BS). He had notes on the response curves of over 300 nurses at the hospital!

[En_Route]

This reminds me of a study I saw a few years ago suggesting there were health benefits for women who ingest their partner's semen. If I am not mistaken there was a reduced risk of breast cancer. But a big part of me thinks the researchers were a bunch of perverts who guessed no one would do a follow up study. Imagine the ad for test subjects! You couldn't place it in the paper!

I used to be a rep for a components company and visited the labs at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. Now there was a TV programme that investigated the question of female stimulation by pornography. With a man they put a strain gauge around his penis. But how do you measure response in a woman? Well I happened to visit the lab and the technician that was given the job. The equipment turned out to be very simple it was a about the size of a medium cigar and contained a series of red LEDS set at 90 degrees to matching detectors. As the blood flow in the vaginal wall increased the amount of light passing between LED and detector increased; very simple. The guy admitted he'd got it working in 3 days but had claimed it had been terribly difficult to calibrate and as such had needed lots of volunteers to test the device on (which was BS). He had notes on the response curves of over 300 nurses at the hospital!

My careers teacher never told me there were jobs like that.

[Tank]

This reminds me of a study I saw a few years ago suggesting there were health benefits for women who ingest their partner's semen. If I am not mistaken there was a reduced risk of breast cancer. But a big part of me thinks the researchers were a bunch of perverts who guessed no one would do a follow up study. Imagine the ad for test subjects! You couldn't place it in the paper!

I used to be a rep for a components company and visited the labs at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. Now there was a TV programme that investigated the question of female stimulation by pornography. With a man they put a strain gauge around his penis. But how do you measure response in a woman? Well I happened to visit the lab and the technician that was given the job. The equipment turned out to be very simple it was a about the size of a medium cigar and contained a series of red LEDS set at 90 degrees to matching detectors. As the blood flow in the vaginal wall increased the amount of light passing between LED and detector increased; very simple. The guy admitted he'd got it working in 3 days but had claimed it had been terribly difficult to calibrate and as such had needed lots of volunteers to test the device on (which was BS). He had notes on the response curves of over 300 nurses at the hospital!

My careers teacher never told me there were jobs like that.

They never do, do they.

I believe I read somewhere that male gynaecologists often end up in marriage counselling because they see so many vaginas the loose interest in their wives.

[Sweetdeath]

This reminds me of a study I saw a few years ago suggesting there were health benefits for women who ingest their partner's semen. If I am not mistaken there was a reduced risk of breast cancer. But a big part of me thinks the researchers were a bunch of perverts who guessed no one would do a follow up study. Imagine the ad for test subjects! You couldn't place it in the paper!

I used to be a rep for a components company and visited the labs at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. Now there was a TV programme that investigated the question of female stimulation by pornography. With a man they put a strain gauge around his penis. But how do you measure response in a woman? Well I happened to visit the lab and the technician that was given the job. The equipment turned out to be very simple it was a about the size of a medium cigar and contained a series of red LEDS set at 90 degrees to matching detectors. As the blood flow in the vaginal wall increased the amount of light passing between LED and detector increased; very simple. The guy admitted he'd got it working in 3 days but had claimed it had been terribly difficult to calibrate and as such had needed lots of volunteers to test the device on (which was BS). He had notes on the response curves of over 300 nurses at the hospital!

My careers teacher never told me there were jobs like that.

They never do, do they.

I believe I read somewhere that male gynaecologists often end up in marriage counselling because they see so many vaginas the loose interest in their wives.

those are some sad and pathetic men 

[Buddy]

those are some sad and pathetic men 

I disagree. If someone ate Chinese food every day for the rest of their life, they would probably soon grow tired of it. The same could probably be said for vaginas.

[Ali]

Well, let that be a warning to men who like to brag about how many ladies they can bag.  When you're knee deep in vag, you may find yourself craving Chinese instead.  Or something.  *solemn nod*

[Will]

It's my understanding that morning sickness can be triggered by strong smells. I suppose that's a bit of a paradox.

[Sweetdeath]

those are some sad and pathetic men 

I disagree. If someone ate Chinese food every day for the rest of their life, they would probably soon grow tired of it. The same could probably be said for vaginas.

he's looking at them, not having sex with them.  There is no excuse, really.


off topic: new icon = <3

[Buddy]

he's looking at them, not having sex with them.  There is no excuse, really.


off topic: new icon = <3

I've gotten bored with a few things by looking. I don't think it is fair to expect men to want vagina all the time.


Thanks. It made me laugh.

[The Magic Pudding]

I disagree. If someone ate Chinese food every day for the rest of their life, they would probably soon grow tired of it. The same could probably be said for vaginas.

If only it were true. 
I blame evolution.
You may pause briefly for sustenance but then it's back on the treadmill, quite pitiful really.