Semen has antidepressent qualities

[Dizzied]

http://www.springerlink.com/content/wrkl9lc5ueu43rh8

Or condoms cause depression.  Now if only we could eradicate STD's.

[DarklingAlice]

For females who did not use condoms, depression scores went up as the amount of time since their last sexual encounter increased.

Methinks it is likely that depression scores went up among those that used condoms as well. In fact...I could probably get pretty good results looking for a general inverse relationship between depression and time since last sexual encounter.

I would approach this with some level of skepticism and be wary of poor controls. Next chance I get I will see if I can score the full article through Uni and get a detailed analysis. Will have to wait till after tomorrow's exam though.

[Oniya]

Semen has been shown to contain testosterone, estrogen, prolactin, luteinizing hormone and prostaglandins.  Low levels of estrogen in particular have been linked to depression (postpartum, postmenopausal, and perimenopausal) in women.  Prolactin is also somehow associated with the 'feel-good' feeling after sex.  Now, whether sufficient amounts of those hormones can be absorbed through the vaginal wall is another matter entirely, which would probably involve pre-and-post-intercourse blood draws.

[Sure]

Or perhaps, more simply, see if the effect is the same in lesbians. If it's just sex, then lesbians can do that, but if it's actually semen, then obviously lesbians wouldn't be subject to the effect.

[Jude]

Being gay has an affect on your mental health however (not directly -- it was established long ago that isn't the case -- but via societal pressures).  It'd be pretty hard to control for all of the variables.  Lesbians simply face too much adversity to be analogous to the general population, I think.

[Sure]

And yet the assertion is that semen has antidepressant qualities. So long as we have a baseline of before sex, then look at them after sex (or look at them in regards to their last sexual encounter), we'll be able to see if there a difference. Unless homosexuality does directly affect mental health it should be irrelevant if the person is more or less happy (or more or less depressed) overall.

In other words, if you made a depression scale of 0-9, with zero being depressed and nine being non-depressed, and the average straight woman was 8, and the average lesbian woman was 5, but after sex they become 9 and 6 respectively, the effect is there. The absolute amount of depression is irrelevant.

It's hard to control for all the variables in any study, though. Arguing about correlation versus causation is actually a fairly good way to destroy most any study.

[DarklingAlice]

It's hard to control for all the variables in any study, though. Arguing about correlation versus causation is actually a fairly good way to destroy most any study.

"But it's hard" is not the greatest defense for not doing proper controls. Any researcher who can't control their variables shouldn't be researching (and by extension any field of scientific research that can't, isn't worthy of the name).



Okay, a cursory reading shows us the top five reasons why this article is not worth the paper it was printed on:

1) sample size of under 300, all college undergraduates
Clearly not the best sample for saying assaying normal reactions, especially not on a test dealing with depression and sexuality. I remember being an undergrad. Being depressed and having sex were practically pastimes at my alma mater. We could have formed a league <_<

2) fundamentally fails by providing no causative mechanism
The closest it comes is: huh, females are often depressed about reproductive issues "such as death of a child, miscarriage, and menopause" let's hypothesize that a load of hormones randomly absorbed through the vaginal wall (and while we are at it we are hypothesizing that is possible in biologically significant doses) will make them happy.

3) females who used condoms had less sex in general, by as much as 100 instances of intercourse a year, one of the questions used to assay depression is how interested you are in sex
Clearly skewing themselves here.

4) relatively large deviations on the depression test (in one group a mean of 15 with a SD of 11), also only one group had a mean score above "minimal depression"
And that one group was "usually". The mean of "always" using a condom was in minimal depression, the same category as "never".

Which leads us to our last and perhaps, most damning of all:
5) those who used condoms "usually" were the most depressed group; significantly more depressed according to the test than the "always" group and had a significantly higher rate of suicide attempt than those who used condoms "always" (29% vs 13%, more than double)
Which is, obviously, counter their hypothesis.

And as a bonus they openly admit that they didn't control for oral contraception (which they also admit that a "substantial number" of females in all categories except "abstinent" were using) use and its effects on mood.

I have no clue how something like this was even published. The only thing we have learned about here is the high rate of unprotected sex on college campuses. Something I think most of us were aware of.

[Dizzied]

I mostly just posted this for the sexy plots it could inspire. 

[Zakharra]

I mostly just posted this for the sexy plots it could inspire.

0.o

[DarklingAlice]

I mostly just posted this for the sexy plots it could inspire.

Sorry, I like taking my frustration out on bad science. It's cathartic.

Aaaaaaand now I am picturing the standard well-hung terrible porn actor dressed as a psychiatrist and spouting lines that would make my brain die were I to try and write them ^_^

Something about curing hysteria and depression at the same time...

[Jude]

This is bad, but at least it's not as bad as this:  http://dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf

[Trieste]

Not only were females who were having sex without condoms less depressed, but depressive symptoms and suicide attempts among females who used condoms were proportional to the consistency of condom use. For females who did not use condoms, depression scores went up as the amount of time since their last sexual encounter increased.

It couldn't possibly be because they were, say, using sex as a self-esteem booster because their self-image was low. It couldn't be that such young women are more prone to self-medicate with alcohol, which is a mood enhancer, when they couldn't get their sexy on. It couldn't possibly be due to internal factors rather than THE MAGIC OF THE PENIS.

Who would believe that?!

Side note:

I mostly just posted this for the sexy plots it could inspire. 

This means it belongs in Off Topic, not Elliquiy U - which is specifically a discussion forum aimed at academic (or sometimes pseudoacademic) discourse.