Men May Be Allergic to Own Semen

(AOL Health) - Men who feel sick immediately after sex may have a rare allergy to their own semen.

The mysterious disorder, known as post orgasmic illness syndrome or POIS, causes flu-like symptoms including fever, runny nose, stinging eyes and sudden intense fatigue after an orgasm.

Dutch researchers set out to document the allergic reaction to sex -- which can last as long as a week -- and test a common allergy treatment in their 45 Dutch male participants.

"Some of the symptoms may be very confusing to the clinician, especially during flu season as well as during allergy season," Dr. Cliff Bassett, medical director of Allergy & Asthma Care of New York, told AOL Health. "It's a difficult diagnosis because many of the symptoms are similar to those of allergy, flu and colds."

Led by Marcel Waldinger, a professor of sexual psychopharmacology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, the scientists conducted two separate experiments on the illness -- which was first reported on in medical journals in 2002. Their subjects were all men who'd been diagnosed with POIS.

"They didn't feel ill when they masturbated without ejaculating," Waldinger told the Toronto Sun. "But as soon as the semen came from the testes ... after that, they became ill, sometimes within just a few minutes."

For one of two studies published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 33 were given a typical skin allergy test using their own, watered-down semen. About 88 percent of that group, or 29 of them, had a positive allergic reaction -- an auto-immune response to the semen that caused the cold- and allergy-like symptoms.

In the second study, the researchers tried a treatment known as hyposensitization therapy, which gradually exposes the body to increasing amounts of the allergen over a few years.

The men who were injected with their own semen, first in an ultra-diluted solution and then in a less and less diluted formula given in subsequent shots, showed a significant improvement in their symptoms after one and three years, according to the Sun.

"It's a very slow process," Waldinger said. "It is used for all sorts of allergies and can sometimes take up to 5 years. ... These results are a very important breakthrough in the research of this syndrome."

Read the full story here.

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Latin lovers? Frigid Brits? Are Sexy Stereotypes True in the Bedroom?

(MSNBC) - Quelle horreur! The French, of all people, seem to be having troubles in the bedroom.

According to a recent survey (conducted by the makers of the erection-enhancing drug Levitra, so grain of salt and all that) 76 percent of the French sometimes suffer from lack of sexual response. They cited reasons any harried American couple might cite: the kids, the job stress, the Blackberry-iPhone-Droid triumvirate of desire-killers. We may think of the French, with their cafes and all those weeks of vacation, as being less-frazzled than the rest of us, but they aren’t, necessarily — and it’s dinging their reputation as lovers.

But was that reputation ever justified? Do the British deserve their image as cold, if polite, fish in the bedroom? Are Latin lovers really more passionate? And are Americans boringly vanilla lovers?

National sex stereotypes matter. We felt their effects in all those “man up” comments aimed at male politicians from Tea Party females during the last campaign.

But it turns out the stereotypes we all know and love, like the “French lover” and "the icy Brit," were mostly created by literature.

The modern idea of an international publishing industry started around the mid-1660s and, as books spread, so did stereotypes, explained Pamela Cheek a professor of languages at the University of New Mexico and author of “Sexual Antipodes: Enlightenment Globalization and the Placing of Sex.”

Books became an important, if often infrequently acknowledged, part of the Enlightenment revolution, the same revolution that inspired America’s founding fathers.
 
Partly because of such "dirty books," and partly due to French PR, France got the reputation of being sexually free.
 
Not to be outdone, the British began publishing their own explicit books like "Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure," more popularly known as Fanny Hill in 1748. It did wonders for creating the stereotype that of British men as conflicted spanking fetishists.
 

Read the rest of the article here.

 

 

 

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Feliz Ano Nuevo!

AnnMarie and I wish you all a fabulous 2011!

Seeking Hot Guys? Avoid These Cities!

(YourTango) - Wondering which cities you can safely skip over on your next all-girls road trip? TotalBeauty just made it easier for you, with a handy top list of the cities with the least attractive dudes. Their method: they looked at factors like education statistics, contraceptive and erotica sales,—"no sex generally equals less hot guys," they write—the number of gyms, exercise habits, obesity rates and smoking rates in every city in the U.S. Scientific? Perhaps not—but certainly worth a read. Male Take: Where To Meet Good Men
The top nine:

#9: HOUSTON, TX: Blame bad teeth, a higher-than-average obesity rate (25 percent of the population is sedentary) and... body odor? Say it isn't so! (TotalBeauty cryptically refers to their "research" when citing the body odor. We're not sure we want to know).

#8: PHILADELPHIA, PA: Between Travel + Leisure magazine's survey of tourists and locals for America's Favorite Cities (they ranked Philly last in the "Attractive People" category) and Men's Health #2 ranking of the City of Brotherly Love for worst teeth, plus a relatively high obesity rate, TotalBeauty doesn't think Philly dudes make the grade.

#7: DETROIT, MI: One of the highest obesity rates in the country, plus a low percentage of men with bachelor's degrees and a low high school graduation rate put these guys high on TotalBeauty's un-boinkable list.

#6 & #5: HUNTINGTON, WV & MOBILE, AL (tie): No one likes a tie, especially when it comes to having equally terrible teeth, a high rate of inactivity, and a low number of gyms.

#4: GREENSBORO, NC: According to QualityHealth.com's survey of sexually active cities, no one's getting laid in Greensboro... which comes as no surprise to TotalBeauty, who point the finger at bad teeth and a high rate of obesity. C'mon, ladies—big guys are sexy, too! (We're with you on the teeth, though).

#3: MIAMI, FL: This one came as a surprise, especially since the country's most impressive abs just finished filming Jersey Shore in Miami. But 21 percent of men 25 years old and up didn't make it past 9th grade—one of the highest dropout rates in the cities TotalBeauty studied. Let's face it, smart guys are hot. Plus, more than 27 percent of Miamians don't exercise regularly—but maybe that's skewed because of the older, retired population?

#2: HAGERSTOWN, MD: Nearly 30 percent of guys in Hagerstown don't exercise regularly and 30 percent are obese... plus, a higher-than-average number of them smoke, compared to the rest of the country.

#1: EL PASO, TX: We want it all: brains and brawn... and the dudes in El Paso don't have much of either, according to Total Beauty: nearly 15 percent of guys in this city have less than a 9th grade education. Plus, 32 percent are in below-average health and 30 percent do not exercise regularly. The end result? Apparently, it ain't pretty.

Read the YourTango article here.

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