Traffic light label for semen

So Caitlin Moran retweeted Jezebel's article "A complete breakdown of the nutritional content of semen", which was interesting. But not in line with UK food labelling. Worry not UK readers, here you go:

There isn't much salt, it's true. However, it's amber as semen is, per 100ml, in the amber category.

For further info, do go check out Jezebel's article, or dive straight into the paper that was their main source:
Owen, D. H. and Katz, D. F. (2005), A Review of the Physical and Chemical Properties of Human Semen and the Formulation of a Semen Simulant. Journal of Andrology, 26: 459–469. doi: 10.2164/jandrol.04104

Fifty Shades of Charity

I've not read Fifty Shades of Grey, but I was tempted, merely to see what the fuss is about, especially given Martin Robbins' review on twitter: “combines the literary skill of a Dan Brown novel with the erotic appeal of a Dan Brown novel”. (It should be known I wanted to watch Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus for similar reasons. It didn't disappoint, but then, my expectations were never that high).

As well as it's bad writing, through the magic of twitter I also found out the Fifty Shades is bad in its depiction of BDSM. The main protagonist makes rookie mistakes (for example he uses cable ties which can cause nerve damage, turns out soft, thick rope's what people use). On top of that the main character is depicted as being psychologically sick. However, to quote from the linked article:

"BDSM, played in a safe and consensual manner, is not proof of mental or physical illness, essential badness or emotional damage from trauma or abusive parenting, and that people cannot – and should not – be treated to cure it.

All the work that has been done to establish that BDSM is not a pathological symptom, but one of a wide range of normative human erotic interests, is in danger of being undermined by the success of Fifty Shades. Let's hope we do not return to the days when people were discriminated against – losing children, property, jobs – for their interest in BDSM."

However, time is precious, and I simply haven't had enough of it to read a book I'm otherwise not interested in. But part of me wishes I had now, as Clare Phillipson, director of Wearside Women in Need, a charity for victims of domestic violence, sees the book as about"...a domestic violence perpetrator, taking someone who is less powerful, inexperienced, not entirely confident about the area of life she is being led into, and then spinning her a yarn. Then he starts doing absolutely horrific sexual things to her … He gradually moves her boundaries, normalising the violence against her. It's the whole mythology that women want to be hurt."

I would like to read the book and make up my own mind. The publisher says that all of the sex involved is consensual. Given it's the best selling book in British history, I would hope that it isn't popularising domestic violence.

Clare Phillipson has a right to voice her objections, but she is also objecting to library funds being used to pay for copies of the book. This is where she is crossing a line - the libraries are buying the books to meet demand (which I think is a good thing, it shows the libraries are getting used). By all means voice concerns, but don't stop other people reading the material.


She's also calling for a public book burning. This strikes me as plain daft - people would have to buy the book so as to own a copy to burn. This only helps the popularity and sales of Fifty Shades of Grey. On top of that, what good does book burning do? A better idea would be for her to encourage people who would otherwise have bought the book to get it from the library, and donate the difference to Wearside Women in Need. Because domestic violence is an issue that needs to be stopped, and funds help that. They're not on JustGiving, but if you like that idea, donate to Refuge instead (yes, I know men are victims of domestic abuse too, but Clare's raising awareness for a charity for women, and I want to match the cause as closely as possible).

http://www.justgiving.com/fiftyshadesofcharity

Hell, even if you don't like the idea of burning books, just chuck in two quid any way. (If you're in the UK just text "BURN50 £2" to 70070).


If people want to experiment with BDSM, or anything else, so long as everyone involved is consenting and nobody comes to any harm, that's ok. But book burning just strikes me as perverse.

Some interesting stuff about sex

During the Olympic ceremony (which was infinitely better with twitter), I saw PZ Myers retweet some comments that were so wrong , they caused me psychic pain, and led me to this article, which appeared the source of the confusion.

Here is the main body of the article, in all its wrongness:

Men sow their seed hither and yon; women guard their vaginas like Fort Knox.

But is this true?

Let’s think about it logically. With each act of sex a male ejaculates semen into the female. This is an investment of physical resources that takes time for the male to replenish. So male animals are limited in how often they can have reproductively viable sex. Female animals, on the other hand, are not. The sex act has zero cost to them.

Now, the reason this obvious truth is invisible to us is because we lump in the cost of carrying young with the cost of sex. Yes, carrying young is high female investment but the sex act itself is higher male investment.

For humans who are often trying to avoid the hassle of pregnancy, this makes some sense. For female animals, it makes no sense. The whole purpose for a female animal, in going into heat, is to get pregnant. Because that’s her instinctive imperative, the hassle of pregnancy is irrelevant to her cost of sex.

In fact, for female mammals, the real risk is investing resources in sub-par offspring. Because of this it’s in their best interest to have sex with as many males in as short a time as possible. Multiple male partners improve both her chance of conception and the quality of the conception via sperm competition. This is why the majority of female mammals are polyandrous—they mate with multiple males.

It is not, however, in the best interest of the male animal to mate with as many females as possible.

Why? Because, quite simply, his sperm is in limited supply. He wants to prioritize delivery of sperm to a.) high quality females and b.) less mated females. 

Our ‘common knowledge’ about so-called male promiscuity is better termed common stupidity.

Further, the relative costs of sex and the priorities of both males and females explain why a male mammal might evolve to pair bond.

A pair-bonding male has maximized his access to a less mated female. He does trade off in terms of access to a higher quality female than himself—higher quality in terms of status and fertility—but he is less likely to obtain this higher quality female and, overall, he’s better off as a pair bonder then a promiscuous breeder. 

It's got it all the wrong. But that's ok, because it's interesting stuff, and gives me an excuse to write about it.

Firstly, sperm is not really in a limited supply for a male. We do, after all, produce 1,500 sperm a second. In fact, we can joyfully masturbate and waste entire ejaculations just for fun and still not worry about our sperm count dropping. I couldn't (quickly) find decent figures on how often men can ejaculate a day, but it is certainly in double figures. Sperm is not a limited resource about which men need to worry. We make loads of the stuff (fertility problems not withstanding).

Secondly, it's seems daft to not count the cost of carrying young in with the cost of sex (not to mention months of lactation, which isn't easy). It's akin to saying that eating at Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée (where, if you order certain types of tea, they bring the plant to you, and cut off leaves with silver shears) is cheap, because when you're eating, no money is passing hands. Of course you should include the menstruation, pregnancy, lactation and child rearing as costs of sex! Even if you discount those, the costs of coitus itself are fairly similar between the sexes. Granted, men do have a cost in the sperm (though sperm is cheap), but vaginas need lubricating too - which is an expense for the woman.

Consequently, for men, it can be a good evolutionary strategy is to sleep around and pass on your genes, without worrying about looking after the child. Sure, this lack of paternal investment may not be good for the child, but ultimately, it's a better use for your sperm than masturbation, or not doing anything with it at all, as you do stand a chance of passing on your genes. Of course, it can also pay to stick with a partner though - human children take years before they are ready to face the world on their own, and paternal support can help them achieve adulthood and hopefully pass (some of) the father's genes on to their own children.

Women, of course, are more choosey - they want to make sure that they get a good set of genes for their child, as they don't get many chances to produce offspring. This doesn't exclude cuckoldry of course - they may well cheat on their partner to get the best of both worlds - a partner who will invest time in the child, whilst the sperm comes from a "better" mate. Though in the long run, of course, this doesn't help propagate genes for men who stick around.

Ultimately though, it is men who have to compete with each other to have sex with women. This is why men are more up for casual sex with strangers; why victims of rape are usually women at the hands of men; why the sex industry is generally females providing services for men; why women are punished more severely for cheating than men are; why we have the term "mistress" but no real equivalent for a man; and much more besides. In fact, marriage probably evolved as a way to ensure the fidelity of a female partner.

It's also why this sentence: "In fact, for female mammals, the real risk is investing resources in sub-par offspring. Because of this it’s in their best interest to have sex with as many males in as short a time as possible." makes no sense. It only takes one sperm to fertilize an egg, and whilst getting more sperm in your vagina might increase your chances of insemination, it implies that good father candidates are all over the place - indeed, the women who sleeps around in such a fashion is unlikely to have a father that sticks around, as their is no point in looking after a child that's unrelated to you (unless your a cassowary).

This of course doesn't give carte blanche for men or women to cheat on their partners. Whatever the reasons for infidelity are, evolutionary biology is not a good excuse.

Sexual behaviour and sperm production in other primates is also interesting. Gorillas have harems - one male has almost exclusive access to many females (who generally aren't promiscuous). Consequently, they have small testicles in relation to their body size. Chimpanzees on the other hand are far more promiscuous, they have massive testicles in relation to their body size as they need to make lots of sperm to increase their chances of passing on their genes.

On top of this, there is sexual dimorphism (one of the sexes is larger than the other) - where dimorphism is high, male–male competition is commonplace; conversely, where dimorphism is low, competition among males is less frequent. Gorillas and orangutans for example have high levels of sexual dimorphism. Chimpanzees are more moderate.

Humans fall almost in the middle of these range, both in testicle size to body weight; and sexual dimorphism - which is why there is probably a bit of variety with monogamy, infidelity and polygyny (and more rarely polyandry which is, interestingly, more commonly fraternal polyandry - brothers sharing a wife. This is a good strategy where resources are scarce - even if your genes aren't passed on, your brothers might be, which is the next best thing. Which makes sense, given the beginning of this blog post).

If you want to find out more about this How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker, and (if I recall correctly) the opening chapters of The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins, are good places to start.

Of course, why stick with humans? There are lots of interesting ways that animals have sex too, and you could do worse than checking out Green Porno.

As for the promotion of "pickup culture" in the essay, I'll leave it to XKCD:

The Blank Slate review

I read my friend Alex's thoughts on gender differences (although technically it's sex differences, gender's for language) presented when signing up for Stumble Upon which led him to think further about the targeting of information that we receive.

If you've not heard about "the filter bubble", and have 9 minutes, you should watch this:

 

Any how, those posts reminded me of the excellent book The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, which I finished, but didn't review on this blog as I was just finishing my PGCE and didn't have the time. It's in a box in storage at the mo', but will review from memory as it's really good!

The book looks at human nature, and challenges three concepts:

The Blank Slate - that there is nothing innate in the human brain and it is all learnt.
The Noble Savage - that people are born good, and it is society that corrupts them.
The Ghost in the Machine - the idea of a soul that can make choices free from biology.

He takes each of these apart masterfully, taking into account the moral attitudes that are associated with each of these concepts - for example showing that, just because there may well be differences between ethnic groups, it is not ok to discriminate because of this, because you should take each individual on their merits.

Indeed, Part V of the book is titled "Hot buttons", and looks at politics, violence, gender, children and the arts.

He notes, for example, that men and women do tend to choose different things. Striving to get a 50:50 break down of men and women into a particular field would not be fair - because the applications would not be received in a similar ratio.


Physics will always have more men in it, for example, because more men choose to do physical sciences. This isn't to say that there aren't other barriers which need to be overcome; that women might still be underrepresented; and that more women should be encouraged to take physics if they wish: but even without any barriers what so ever, there will be more men doing physics. 

The book is actually the second he's written on human nature, the first being How the mind works. In fact, I've quoted from that before about, in relation to male and female attitudes to sex. Pinker has actually written two trilogies - one on language, the other on human nature. Both trilogies finish with The Stuff of Thought, which combines the two, and is the book I am currently reading. If I were you, I'd invest your time in reading The Language Instinct, How the mind works, Words and Rules, The Blank Slate and The Stuff of Thought in that order. It's a fantastic set of books - interesting, well written, humorous. I hadn't read anything by Steven Pinker before these, but he is now one of my favourite writers.

In defense of Stephen Fry

Not that it's needed of course, he has an excellent post where, as usual, he does a phenomenal job.

However, following the misreporting of what he said, I just wanted to highlight the following from Steven Pinker's "How the mind works" (Chapter 7: Family Values, Page 470, Penguin books, ISBN-13: 978-0-140-24491-5)

"The psychologists R. D. Clark and Elaine Hatfield hired attractive men and women to approach strangers of the opposite sex on a college campus and say to them, "I have been noticing you around campus. I find you very attractive," and then ask one of three questions: (a) "Would you go out with me tonight?" (b) "Would you come over to my apartment tonight?" (c) "Would you go to bed with me tonight?" Half the women consented to a date. Half the men consented to a date. Six percent of the women consented to go to the stooge's apartment. Sixty-nine percent of the men consented to go to the stooge's apartment. None of the women consented to sex. Seventy-five percent of the men consented to sex. Of the remaining twenty-five percent, many were apologetic, asking for a rain check or explaining that they couldn't because their fiancée was in town. The results have been replicated in several states. When the studies were conducted, contraception was widely available and safe-sex practices were heavily publicized, so the results cannot be dismissed simply because women might be more cautious about pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases."

Men and women really are actually different, and whilst it's obvious we both enjoy sex, we do both approach it differently.