Sperm Wars - A New Hope

I wish I had the internet in 1998 - Or took the time to read more widely.

I picked a book off the shelf in the study today that I'd bought while I was at University 12 years ago. I suddenly remembered one particular part of it that had stayed with me in the back of my mind.

Sperm Wars
I recalled something from it about womens' bodies being able to pick and choose, without the woman's concious knowledge, what sperm it wanted to fertilise it's eggs.

A further scary revelation was that, if they were ovulating, the poor helpless women, with the best of monogomous intentions, couldn't really help wrapping themselves round a stranger while they were ovulating in a nightclub.

Obviously this must have been a poorly remembered version of what this scientific book had said, so I was keen to delve in to see what the hell I had read over ten years ago.

These days I am much better at critically analysing things and picking holes in them. I was sure on a second read all these years later I would find the flaw in the theory. As I was now the stable husband type in this half remembered scenario, I was offended by the suggestion that any old handsome buck in a night club could pull my wife just because she was ovulating, and all in spite of her resolute faithfulness too. I'm sure she'd be all the more offended herself.

The book is 'Anatomy of Desire - The science and psychology of sex, love and marriage' by Simon Andreae. The writing is very balanced and the author points out the limitations of all the research throughout. So I am not criticising Andreae, per se. I can't remember why on earth I bought it. It certainly wasn't to do with what I was supposed to be studying at the time - I think it must have caught my eye in the University Book Shop.


I suppose I was more brave and more curious then. If I'd bought something with a title like that today, I'd probably feel quite self concious - either 'dirty old man' or 'man with problem', or both. But of course I have the internet for that kind of thing these days.

So today, after all these years, I dipped in the book to find the right bit - and correct my knowledge. This is what I found. (please forgive the distasteful nature, I am paraphrasing the book).

• The particular study referred to in the book was by biologists Robin Baker and Mark Bellis and was based on their book their 1995 book, Human Sperm Competition.




• The study revealed that women's privates do spit out the sperm of their stable partners and suck up the sperm of their sexy lovers, through what they termed 'flowback' and 'upsuck' respectively. Charming.


• Linked to this was the discovery that if women orgasm about the same time as the man (which they are more likely to do with the lover than the partner) there was less flowback, because 'upsuck' is caused by orgasm.


• The book defines a woman coming 'close' as having an orgasm beween one minute before the man up to to three minutes after. (Three minutes after is presumably after man is asleep, watching tv or making a cuppa - ho ho macho joke!). Not close could be either long before male orgasm or long after.


• Women masturbate more the more sex they're getting. The reason they give is that, subconciously the women want to kill the sperm of their stable partners, so they masturbate to create a hostile environment for sperm to survive (makes it mildly acidic).


• The size of balls in a species is an accurate indicator of the level of sexual promiscuity of the female of the species. I believe this point. But rather than supporting their argument, I think it supports the argument for the level of human female promiscuity being controllable. (Erm - controllable by the female I mean, minefield!) But perhaps the authors had bigger balls than me (the smaller the balls the less promiscuous the females are).


• [Can I side track here? - I just love the image of macho male animals with big 'ol balls, thinking they rule the roost - not being aware that all the while, that their females can't get enough of their buddies big balls as well.]


• And yes there was this bit about women while ovulating being less faithful, although this might have been part of a different study. I suppose there's something in it - just not the way it's all written like an animal instict that the woman can't control.


• Finally some estimates of female promiscuity were set out as follows: 47% of the women in the Baker and Bellis study had 'double mated' (slept with more than one man within a five day period). Outside of Baker and Bellis Andreae back this up with other research on wives having affairs: in late 1940s 8% of under 35s had affairs; 20% by age 35; In 1980 it was 50% of under 35s and 70% of over 35s.

Counter argument - A New Hope

I reiterate, I wished I'd had the internet more readily to hand back then because on the basis of a quick google I have found a bit of criticism in an Independent Newspaper article by another author (Tim Birkhead) which has put my mind to rest.

Although I was sceptical about the idea's in the book back then, I was also impressionable and I quite like theories of uncontrollable animal desires in humans. Blaming insticts could let you off the hook after all, a convenient way to think sometimes.

I was optimistic though. I thought that, even if there was some primal truth in this theory, my future relationships could beat these odds. I still think so, in 1998 I found a love so strong, that no hunk sniffing round my ovulating woman would get a look in. I married her too.

[By the way there is a whole load in this book about men which I may review another time, I am sure isn't any more flattering.]

Exploding sperm

The Birkhead article summarises the work of Baker and Bellis and points out something from it that is not in my book.

"Their most extreme idea was "kamikaze sperm" - sperm which, on contacting those of another male, exploded and killed both themselves and their rival.".

These guys are crackers - I love the idea though, and aparently it happens in other species. Other species more likely to gang bang as a matter of course I expect.

Size of Balls (again)

The article goes on to criticise the survey evidence as being self selecting and having too small a sample size and it refers to later experiments that failed to replicate the 'exploding sperm' (surprise) and certain paternity test evidence they used. You can follow the link if you're interested. The important thing is that we can so quickly find information these days.

The article also refers a bit more to this size of balls hypothesis, using the two extremes of
Gorillas and Chimps. Gorillas have small balls and have faithful wives, Chimps have big balls (10x bigger than Gorillas' using measures relative to body weight) and have slutty slutty wives.


Humans are in the middle of the scale, but far towards the Gorilla (faithful) side of the spectrum, with balls that are only twice the size of Gorillas' using the same relative measure.

So there we are, women are twice a naughty as gorilla girls but only 20% as slutty as chimpesses!

Cave loving
Finally I'd like to return to my book to study a passage at the end of the relevant chapter, which leaves a fantastic image with me that I must share.

It refers to 'flowback' which was Baker and Bellis's term for what we now call the wet patch or drippy cream pie (depending on how uncouth you are). The book says that "Tim Taylor, an archaeologist from the University of Bradford, has suggested that flowback may have been even more crucial in our evolutionary past, when regular strenuous excercise (and notable lack of chairs) equipped our female ancestors with strong and controllable pubic muscles. Early women may have been able not to just let sperm drain out, but actively to expel it."

Now imagine, cave man and cave woman, approaching the climax of rocking the cave.

Caveman "UG UG UG UG uuuuuggg ahhh." Cave man is satisfied, he has a cave smile on his cave face and then he hears a strange sound....."SQUELSH - SQUIRT-SPLASH!"

and a trickle of his cave load running down the cave wall.

Caveman "UG? YOU SQUIRT OUT MY JUNK?"

Cave woman "UG. NO! - IT JUST THE RAIN - YOU GO SLEEP NOW - I GOING OUT TO CLUB. DON'T WAIT UP."