This is what patriarchy comes like.
On the veldt, women performed sperm counts while men did the hunting.
Man, she's not kidding about chimp testicles.
"the flabbiest scrotum with a greatly dangling left testis belonged to the oldest male, Kalunde; the hairiest scrotum with a fairly dangling right testis indicated Bonobo (Figure 2) in his early twenties; a dark-spotted scrotum with a mildly dangling left testis indicated Darwin in his middle teens"
I do not like to poke fun at science! but this study just sounds like a Playboy letter.
This means that sociobiology definitively favors the MMF threesome over MFF. More sperm, more male competition, more pleasure and excitement for everyone.
We should fan out to PUA sites and spread the good news. It's rare when behavioral science can definitively answer a pressing social question.
Darn it, I am at work and can't get the relevant article I just saw. Apparently evidence is emerging that all sperm are not the same -- some may have different functions than others, and the "they're all going for the egg" explanation from junior high is wrong.
Maybe that's what they meant by "swimming" in the article you linked.
That was far and away the best swimming thread of them all.
Very plausible. I wonder what "more healthy sperm" means. I notice that when someone other than myself has been present for, and played some role in, my orgasm, the volume of semen is much greater, and it is much more watery. Maybe this is a more habitable milieu for the sperm, so they live longer upon exit.
7: We're back to intraejaculate sperm selection! Here are St/phen A. M//gs' latest thoughts on the subject.
The first time Ogged linked to Olivia Judson I deduced a healthy affinity for Olivia Judson. But now that he's linked to Olivia Judson on this very topic for a second time I think the interest in monkeyballs is made clear.
I wonder what "more healthy sperm" means.
Motility, speed, and morphology.
Motility, speed, and morphology. armaments.
the interest in monkeyballs is made clear
WELCOME TO SUPER MONKEY BALL WORLD
8,9,10: John Barth may need to update "Night Sea Journey".
ooh, I was hoping we could talk about this article on Unfogged!
The Lovely Dr. Judson: In others -- such as humans -- females do not store sperm. (Just as well: it would be annoying to suddenly become pregnant 20 years after an event you've entirely forgotten.)
But wait, what if you could consciously control when the egg was released! Wouldn't that be handy.
The Lovely Dr. Judson: What has only recently been discovered is that males in many species make subtle alterations to their ejaculates on a copulation-by-copulation basis, depending on their assessment of immediate sperm competition risk. (This isn't under conscious control; the male's body just does it.)
Again, wouldn't it be cool if this was under your conscious control?
Brings new meaning to "gonna give you all of my lovin'"
Motility, speed, morphology, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope. If these sperm don't think they're anywhere near an ovum, they will cripple themselves so that their owner does not commit the sin of wasting healthy sperm.
12:
Judson may have a surface understanding of this issue, but M//gs really comprehends it at every level including all the deeper implications. Also, no man's writing has ever been creepier.
The occasion of this thread cannot be allowed to pass without a shoutout to Angus Young and the boys.
This means that sociobiology definitively favors the MMF threesome over MFF.
Evolution is not a feminist.
Now I wonder why my urologist didn't recommend threesomes when he diagnosed my sperm count as unfortunately and unexplainably low. What is science good for if not to supply justification to swing?
That website by Stephen Me//igs linked above is terrific, if incomprehensible. He has D/n B/ste's problem of layering too much dull, prolix writing over his essential craziness. But the central core craziness sparkles. I'm still not sure what he's talking about, although it's obviously crazy.
For future reference: Are presidents reserved across threads? Because FTR, the JFK linked in 28 is not me.
who would'a thunk? unfogged has hash-key collisions.
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I'd restrained myself from making fun of Yggls's wide-eyed "there's these things called urban planning and transportation policy... have you heard of them?" approach to educating himself about planning issues -- after all, he's on the right side of things -- but this is just cracking me up. "This game, SimCity, I cannot be sure it is realistic in all parameters."
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30: but does it have race conditions?
32: of course! how else do you get pwnage pwnage?
You have to admit, the linked JFK is truer to historical form that this threads.
The mapping of pseud->president is not conserved, but the presidents' personality should be. GW slept around, Andrew Jackson did shameful hate-filled things, Lincoln was not right in the head, Grant drank, and so on.
I was just trying to be funny, JFK2.
I opened this thread only in the vain hope that no one had linked to ///// yet. Too bad.
A friend of mine owned a hobby farm and had a ram. I could not believe the size of his balls.
The size of a ram's testicles is in direct proportion to that ram's mother's fertility (fecundity). This passes on to the lambs. In Dr. Cleon Kimberling's book, it quotes the following measurements: "The minimum scrotal circumference for a yearling ram (12 to 18 months of age) should be 33 to 34 centimeters [13 to 13.4 inches], and for ram lambs (6 to 9 months old) should be 30 to 31 centimeters [11.8 to 12.2 inches]."....Testicle size is very important.
My bolding.
34: Nobody's going to want to be William Henry Harrison, then.
35: Eventually, this blog will consist entirely of presidential comments about football.
34: Wait a minute -- we're supposed to have informed and witty purpose in the selection of temporary presidential pseuds? This is really a demanding site.
The testicles should be symmetric in size and texture and in a mature terminal sire approximately twice as long as wide - 10-12cms by 5-6cms and perhaps 35cms circumference. Size is very significant. A ram with 40-50 ewes will serve perhaps 200 times in a month and should ejaculate on each and every occasion.
Just pick at random, something vaguely related to the topic of conversation.
29: Well, there are only 42 different presidents, depending on how you count them, so if presidents were reserved that would put a limit on the number of commenters allowed to comment presidentially. People have sometimes used First Ladies or heads of government of other countries, but still. As long as presidents are reserved with any given thread, I think it should be OK.
Also, have any presidents never been used?
No need to limit ourselves to American Presidents.
China's Herodotus+Thucidides figure, Sima Qian, was castrated as punishment for taking the wrong side in a court faction conflict. He wrote an incredibly personal, very moving letter, translated here , unfortunately unavailable in limited preview snippets.
No need to limit ourselves to American Presidents.
Hear, hear!
As long as presidents are reserved with any given thread,
Unless it's funny.
41: I should probably go look him up or something, but I'll just go ahead and assume that was a compliment and thank you for the flattery. (ignorance, bliss... )
Reading the post made me recall the swaggering superannuated frat boy (nice guy though, really) who administered the exam for the Red Cross Advanced Lifesaving (lifeguard) certification. Just before we began, he announced: "This is a test. I am the tester. And you are the testes."
52: Sifu was run over by a critical mass ride as a small child.
No, really, good for him. But it's a little funny, admit it!
Hey did anybody ever recommend Jane Jacobs to Brock?
Martin Van Buren: The Greatest American President.
Van Buren was a native speaker of Dutch.
You know, googleproofing someone's name is pointless if you link to their blog.
"This is a test. I am the tester. And you are the testes."
Legend has it that Moore, lecturing on properties of properties, would discuss the q-ness of p-ness.
39: Actually, I rather like football.
But it's a little funny, admit it!
Yeah, it is. I've been holding back for similar reasons, but this one cries out for at least mild ribbing.
56: does that even really count as googleproofing?
'I'm testier than you', said the chimpanzee to the ape.
Oh, it's better than nothing. Google considers many factors in their al-khwarizmus.
Cursed! My fiendish plan has been foiled!
For image content affecting ejaculate composition, see Kilgallon, S. J. and Simmons, L. W. 2005. "Image content influences men's semen quality." Biology Letters 1: 253-255.
Are there any working biologists here? What's the quality of the journal cited for the 3-way porn=meaner sperm hypothesis?
Are there any working biologists here?
Nobody here is really doing that much working.
I got an old junker biologist out in back that you might be able to get running.
Because it's a guy like us, not some Guatamalan.
The American tourist industry is in trouble.
Biology Letters has an impact factor of 2.0, putting it at 92/159 journals with "biology" in the title. There are good specialist journals with very low impact factors because of small communities of citing authors. This is not a specialist journal. It's also a new journal (2005); that means that really figuring out how good it is means assessing the editors, something I won't do.
Dear Biology Letters:
I never thought it would happen to me, but yesterday I found that cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real world setting...IYKWIM.
Are there any working biologists here?
Their density in this particular habitat is the subject of heated empirical dispute. Recent studies have exposed the methodological sloppiness in the counts conducted by conservation groups. The authors of the original studies defend their results, and point out that the critical studies were financed by foundations with close financial links to extractive industry. A tag-and-release study by a team of respected, neutral researchers is contemplated, but the project has been stymied by the difficulty of live capture of this particular species.
Aldous Huxley
Fifth Philosopher's Song
A million million spermatozoa,
All of them alive:
Out of their cataclysm but one poor Noah
Dare hope to survive.
And of that billion minus one
Might have chanced to be
Shakespeare, another Newton, a new Donne--
But the One was Me.
Shame to have ousted your betters thus.
Taking ark while the others remained outside!
Better for all of us, froward Homunculus,
If you'd quietly died!
70- Did that news just raise your sperm count?
70: Arguably, a comment addressing the endorsement by a reproductive rights group is still tangentially on topic in a thread involving sperm production in primates.
70: That is pretty good. NARAL (whom I have had issues with) is a group that resonates with many of the Hillary-clingers.
Is this the European million and billion? In the US a million million is a trillion.
Those Planet of the Apes chimps were lucky, eh? Smart and sexy.
75: Maybe by "OT" he meant "On Topic".
67: When I saw "combat indignation fatigue," at first I read "combat" as an adjective modifying "indignation," which was very confusing. I mean, indignation doesn't seem like a common response to being in a state of combat.
Also, from the article:
"We have a lot of government people here and lobbyists and lawyers and very educated, very savvy Washingtonians," said Jim Cooper, Ms. Cooper's father, a businessman, describing the reaction in his neighborhood, the Wessynton subdivision of Alexandria. "They were pretty shocked that the government could do this sort of thing, because it doesn't happen that often, except to people you never hear about, like Haitians and Guatemalans."
Or Obama Triumphant!
Die Boomers Die! Bow to your new masters! Bow asto the generation with colitis goes by.
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It is paper grading time here, so I feel this intense need to comment on Unfogged. However, this semester I'm just going to stick with one blanket comment:
People believe some pretty weird things.
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82: Of course, everything is different in the South.
78: The Planet of the Apes movies would be a lot funnier if the chimps like Roddy McDowell were all given enormous bulging crotches, and the bad guy gorillas and orangutans in the military and church all had tiny packages.
These Nuts Are Made For Fightin'
damn, that gets the song going in my head....these nuts are made for fightin'...and that's just what they'll do...one of these days these nuts are...HEY!! THAT'S DIRTY!
Since we're talking reproduction, does anyone have any good labor induction tools? We've tried walking, sex, raspberry tea, evening primrose oil and walking at a special mall (yes, I know.) We really don't want a chemical induction, so we're willing to try just about anything.
Good ol' punch to the belly often does the trick.
Harry: Try sex again. Even if it doesn't work...well hey... sex.
raspberry tea, evening primrose oil
You have already tried a chemical induction.
minneapolitan: I'm not in the South any more. I'm in OH, which is south of you, though.
I ate tacos the night before Rory finally decided to make her appearance. Spicy food is one of those wives tales, so worth a shot. Rory was a little late (as she has been ever since), so odds are it had nothing to do with the tacos. Giving the belly a stern talking to ("Mommy would really like her body back now please.") might also help. That last few days really sucks -- my sympathies to Mrs. Truman.
CJB: YKWIM. I'm not much of a chemo/technophobe, but from what I hear, pitocin isn't a fun time.
Awwww, c'mon helpy-chalk. Just one example of a weird thing?
from what I hear, pitocin isn't a fun time
Didn't B have labor induced? She would know I guess.
Thanks to all.
91: Mrs. Truman is a trooper, in more ways than one. We've tried spicy Chinese, so maybe spicy Mexican is the next step.
President Truman: Sneak up behind her with an air horn, then give 'er hell.
but from what I hear, pitocin isn't a fun time
Fleur can tell you horror stories about it.
The wife of one of my colleagues did jumping jacks when one of hers was overdue. Ironically, another of her children was born early; she went into labor in the first class cabin of a transatlantic flight.
try mixing it up. have sex while walking & balancing cups of primrose tea, say.
You never know 'till you try, right?
Try sex again.
Nipple stimulation is also supposed to help. It's kinda embarrassing, though, when the nurse patiently explains that you're supposed to be stimulating *her* nipples.
"Oh right. That makes sense. Can I, um, just finish up here first?"
I've heard curry. Also, someone I know took castor-oil [which worked]. However, I've also read that's really not a good idea [nausea, dehydration, etc].
http://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/labourandbirth/planningyourbabysbirth/naturalbringonlabour/#4
Kobe says have special spicy sex at mall!
Well that didn't work worth a damn.
Her being the wife, not the nurse. This is not a Penthouse Letter.
Even Kobe is late in this thread.
104: Send it to Biology Letters instead, then.
(That's right, I'm gonna hammer away at this one.)
I'm gonna hammer away at this one.
He said he's already tried that.
Also Congratulations, Harry & Bess!
He said he's already tried that.
But to no avail. At least not yet. Keep at it Harry!
113: The tried and true Stormcrow family plan. Do something that makes it as inconvenient as possible to get to the hospital.
Buck up, Harry old bean. Remember, roger vigorously and carry a big air-horn.
but from what I hear, pitocin isn't a fun time
Castor oil worked for my SIL, but then labor didn't progress fast enough. When the risk of infection became too high (if too much time lapses between water breaking and giving birth), she ended up getting pitocin anyway, which was awful for her.
113: The tried and true Stormcrow family plan.
Keep reading the same comment over and over again until the baby crowns.
106: Thanks, apo.
109: Thanks, much. Our hopes for Margaret are high.
My understanding of nipple stimulation is that it only serves to lengthen contractions, not initiate them. Additionally, it's not the nibble-nibble of gentle foreplay, but something like twisting them for an hour.
86: I had an acupuncturist friend try to induce, too. No dice.
FWIW, the pitocin wasn't as bad as people say it is. It took me a bit to sort of get my feet under me, figuratively speaking, but the l&d nurse helped with that, and for the next 24 hours things went fine. Until the obgyn got impatient and decided we needed to just do a c-section.
Good luck. Just keep in mind that whatever happens, that baby's gonna be coming out somehow.
119: Thanks, B. Did you get to walk around any? Our doula/CW seems to think that's a big deal.
but something like twisting them for an hour.
Which can be fun, too.
Harry already knows this, but sex at 9 months pregnancy is not a whole lot of fun. It's more like "hurry up and get this over with."
Michelle Obama and I were having fun sex in the first pregnancy right up to the end. The second wasn't as fun filled. I think the lesson is YMMV.
I walked. Not a lot because, hello? Nine months pregnant with huge baby? Leaning on a stop sign near the video rental place because your cervix hurts isn't a lot of fun. But hey, it's worth a try.
Here are a couple of acupressure points. My own acupuncturist friend also did some weird thing on the outer ear, which I can't find a link to, but hey, it didn't work.
I know it's a bit late to be saying this, but try not to stress *too* much about the whole "natural, ideal" labor thing. I felt bad for a while about the induction/c-section, but you know what? I got over it.
sex at 9 months pregnancy is not a whole lot of fun
It is with me, laydeez.
pitocin gave me 5 minute long contractions. i got the epidural shortly thereafter.
totally off topic, i graduated yesterday, motherfuckers!!! hood and all!!
122: Fair enough. IME, sex at that point, especially if you're really just trying to induce labor, is a heroic measure.
put her hand in warm water while she's sleeping
126: Hey, its a red lettuce day all around!
i graduated yesterday, motherfuckers!
Congrats. You're going to love college.
actually, i guess it was 2 days ago. I felt bad about waiting so long to tell unfogged, it seems. and thanks, ladies.
124: Yeah, I think I'm okay with it. Bess is a RN in the newborn ICU, so I think she's a little more aware of the extreme outcomes than I am. I think that's part of what's driving a desire for natural/ideal.
Congratulations Sybil! What are you going to do now?
134: Ah. It won't help for me to say that before modern medicine women DIED GIVING BIRTH, will it?
134: Ugh, that can be stressful. My friend who is married to a pediatrician was very nervous before her first because of all the stories (sad or happy) her husband came home with from the NICU.
There is, however, a silver lining. As their kids are both healthy, knowing what an extreme outcome looks like has made them both much more relaxed parents; they can recognize that whatever little things they screw up are indeed, in the grand scheme of things, just little things.
B, They aren't trying to have fun, they're trying to have a baby.
What are you going to do now?
For starters, quit smoking.
It would be interesting to see a three way comparison between deaths in childbirth
1. Before modern medicine
2. In a fully modern hospital
3. In natural childbirth with hospital-sanitary conditions where the mother has had the best of modern nutrition.
I'm actually surprised we never found such a straightforward study when Molly was pregnant and we were reading about such things.
Oh wait, I remember: one problem is that in case (3), if something requiring hospital care occurs, people go to the hospital, thus dumping complicated pregnancies there, and spoiling the sample.
For starters, quit smoking.
Shouldnt you celebrate first?
I celebrated some. I just figure I can't keep waiting for milestones, you know? This last week I turned 30 and graduated and that's got ot be enough already.
Happy birthday!
Wow. 30? That makes you ten years younger than Apo! Apo, don't you feel old now?
143: Hurrah! And good luck. It sucks. You're allowed to bitch all you like.
Geez, people:
127 to 126.2
Sybil:
i graduated yesterday, motherfuckers!!! hood and all!!
Bitch responds:
Fair enough. IME, sex at that point, especially if you're really just trying to induce labor, is a heroic measure.
God. I was hoping you would weigh in and go, oh, Sybil, it's so easy by now. I barely even notice it, even though the weather is begging me to sit outside and smoke all day.
This excessively long waiting time between posts is disconsiderate of us lurkers with nothing better to do two days before the local elections.
Quitting smoking sucks. I managed to stay quit for a whole fucking year and then slowly, bit by bit, I am back to smoking several cigarettes a day, every day. Fuck.
154: I meant the quitting sucks. AT this point, I do, actually, hardly notice it despite the weather. But I will say that when spring first hit maybe a month ago? It was hard all over again--but not as hard as those first few days, I promise.
First few days: HELL ON EARTH.
Rest of first week: Hell on earth.
Week 2, maybe week 3: Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Month, ish: Hey! I think the worst part's over!
Early spring: Goddamm I'd like a cigarette. Just one wouldn't kill me. NO MUST NOT. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Now: Lalala I don't smoke any more but every once in a while I feel wistful.
Hopefully I won't restart ala LeBlanc, but for now, that's where things mostly are.
(FWIW, I would totally have started again if it weren't for the I-promised-PK thing. So I recommend making a promise to a kid.)
sex at that point, especially if you're really just trying to induce labor, is a heroic measure
I don't smoke any more but every once in a while I feel wistful.
This does go away, B.
Congratulations to Dr. Vane. Your opinions in American political debates will henceforth be dismissed as out of touch and elitist.
I was just trying to be funny, JFK2.
I was overly sensitive, which frankly is silly given the pseudonymity. Sorry to spoil—it's been a weird day.
The mapping of pseud->president is not conserved, but the presidents' personality should be.
Antitypes are people too!
161: I wouldn't say it goes away so much as the amount of time that passes in between grows a little longer every time.
164 is right. You may find that you group your friends into Nicotine+ and Nicotine- sets, with smoker friends bringing on urges to light up yourself. Also, congrats Dr Dr.
164: That's probably true for many, particularly in the context of 165. I found after 10 years it was just gone, but ymmv.
161: The not smoking part?
Given that my boyfriend smokes--the bastard!--and that he smokes the same brand I do, I'm thinking it's gonna be damn hard to stay quit, but we'll see.
Americans are too indulgent of their children. Here's B extending her life by as much as a decade, saving herself hundreds of dollars a year, and avoiding hacking coughs and the like -- and why? Because she doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to say no to a snotty little kid she waits on hand and foot.
In Kentucky or Virginia PK would have had his ass whipped for behaving disrespectfully. But B is a LIBERAL.
Congratulations and happy birthday SV. Congratulations to the Trumans.
168: Just cut him off until he quits, too. Unless he's more important to you than your promise to PK, of course.
President Truman - avoid chemical induction simply by saying "no". I know it's hot (well, it is here) and she's uncomfortable and everyone's impatient and everything, but is there no possible way that the last few days of pregnancy could just be enjoyed? The baby will come in a day or 4, or 7 - it's not going to stay in there forever. (Oh fuck, what with that thread the other day and now this, I am outing myself as the "natural birth"* nazi, aren't I?)
That said, has she had a stretch & sweep? A couple of them, a couple of days apart is correlated with the onset of labour.
Sir Kraab, I wonder if they told your SIL that the NICE recommended limit is 96 hours between waters breaking and birth of baby. Most medical people seem to think that 24 is near enough to 96 to start getting arsey.
* (not actually a phrase I would ever use)
asilon--Did you ever get that Mirena IUD? (I was just reading through old unfogged BC threads.) Do you like it? Some people online seem to love it, and others say that the hormonal changes are terrible(progestin only=depression), and they get it removed. At least one woman had it taken out and replaced it with the copper paragard which was fine.
170: Thank you, Napi.
172: In the States, I think it's referred to as "stripping the membranes"; if so, then yes, they tried. Unfortunately, the physician was not able to.
We've pushed pretty hard on the doctors to delay; we trust our physician and she seems to think that the baby needs to come out sooner rather than later. (Bess has gestational diabetes, but fiercely diet-controlled. I've never been prouder of the First Lady. Apparently, the docs wouldn't have let her go this long otherwise.)
In a similar vein as the breaking of the waters, I was surprised to learn recently pregnancies after 42 weeks, not 40 that are considered post-term. I think it's interesting that the docs here seem to start the clock ticking at 40 weeks and 1 second.
Interesting; my doc also started pushing me to induce at 40 weeks, and I finally agreed at 42 weeks and one day.
My brother was nearly 4 weeks late. No induction.
BG, anecdata of course, but one of my friends has the Mirena IUD or an equivalent and really, really likes it.
177: This is really just a theoretical question for me at this point. The Paragard is approved for women who have never had a child, and the Mirena isn't.
I love the word nullipara, although they always write "nulliparous women." The women bit seems redundant.
I sort of hate to offer this kind of anecdata, but the Mirena IUD failed me. Before that, however, it eliminated my periods and produced no detectable hormonal effects.
I wonder whether a copper IUD could/ would set off a metal detector. I don't think that it would set off a normal one, but the ones in prisons go off if you wear an underwire bra. They also go over you with a wand thing. I'd hate to have to undergo a full ccavity search because of one.
180: Why? It's good to know. Especially with hormonal birth control, with the different pills/devices and side effects seemingly affecting every woman differently.
It failed in the sense that I got pregnant. Hard to say why, exactly. I loved it more than the pill in terms of how I felt but that seemed sort of unimportant once I was knocked up.
Yeah, my comment didn't make sense. I mean, why feel bad about offering the very relevant fact that it didn't actually contraceive?* And in general, one shouldn't feel bad about saying that some birth control method had drawbacks.
*It should be a word.
She meant "why?" in the sense that you shouldn't hesitate to offer the anecdote, doc.
Oh, I see. Well, I feel ambivalent offering it because it was such a small minority event, so incredibly unlikely to happen with that method of bc and since I felt great on it I don't like to be discouraging, given the unlikelihood of my experience being many others'.
That'll teach you to butt in when the ladies are talking about lady things.
Also, I got pregnant on the pill. So it's possible that my Mirena experience has everything to do with me and how my body deals (or doesn't) with hormonal bc.
It's sort of a drag. I'm thinking about looking into buying pregnancy tests by the case. You wouldn't believe how many I take.
This information is really putting a damper on my plans for our torrid affair, Sybil.
176: On a very morbid note, it took a brief Google Books search to find out why the docs are so nervous about going long. "Perinatal mortality" drops to its lowest level at 40-41 weeks and starts going back up to pretty high levels after 42 weeks. It's a pretty hard set of stats to ignore; at the same time, it puts a non-zero amount of stress on the parents.
I was hoping you had some low count issues, love.
Someone tell Ogged's Mom about Sybil. A respectable, fertile PhD.
Wait. Married with kids? Scratch that.
How did a posting about big balls become so estrogen-drenched? Ogged is bravely trying to drag it back.
Of course, I find it unbearable because I'm an American man who HATES WOMEN.
196: Just cover up all those photos in your bedroom of men double-teaming you, and replace them with pictures of happy flowers, and his sperm will become sluggish and unfocused.
How did a posting about big balls become so estrogen-drenched? Ogged is bravely trying to drag it back.
Dude, it started out estrogen-drenched. The big balls are inspired by promiscuous females, remember?
I was hoping you had some low count issues, love.
Iranian woman are shockingly promiscuous, if you know what I mean.
200: so true. And that's what men hate about women, that in the end it all comes back to them. Showing the hollowness of male chest-pounding.
I heard, Ogged, that you don't like Iranian women *or* slutty girls. If you know what I mean.
Cala, please tell us that you didn't delete your entire dissertation just now.
No, but I really should because it is SUCH A PIECE OF SHIT.
209: Damn. I suppose if I'd waited a couple more weeks PK would've been as well. I'm just as happy I didn't.
Cala's pregnant?
Not by you, low sperm count guy.
re: 211
On the other hand, he was the most super-robust [in the sense of strong, not in the sense of fat] baby you've ever seen. Looked like he could have wrestled bears at about 10 months old. Downside of that, he cried in a deep voice [not a high pitched new baby cry] and never seemed to get tired.
estrogen drenched
what i recalled
a friend's PhD thesis was on the physiological influence of the increased milk consumption in the diet of the japanese males after wwii
there was found a correlation between increased milk consumption (estrogen) and prostate cancer increase
this like confirms that
http://www.cancerproject.org/survival/cancer_facts/prostate_dairy.php
Muscle baby. Now 4 1/2 y.o. His privacy is unfortunately being preserved, and out titillation wrongly obstructed, by the Communist / Nazi Germans.
Ouch, Sybil. Have you ever considered the Paragard copper IUD? I think that LizardBreath has one.
Cala, Why "Fuuuuuck"?
Didn't you once say that your advisor only saw holes in your arguments, because you wrote so clearly? Just obfuscate a bit.
How about a birth weight pissing contest then? I was 11 lbs, 2 oz.
This is like holes on backorder from the Swiss cheese factory.
Try browsing around in the journals, Cala. It'll remind you that "full of holes" is the industry standard.
I also commend to you my dissertation mantra: "It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be DONE."
increased milk consumption in the diet of the japanese males after wwii
On first read, I wondered why playing a video game would increase milk consumption. And then I realized wwii was not a typo, but a historical event.
I am so not higher type people.
219: That's actually part of my current problem. (The other is that I'm tired.) I'm trying to avoid turning other arguments that are full of holes into strawmen.
President Truman: I think that pressure on the roof of the mouth is supposed to stimulate labor. Also have heard the castor oil thing.
You mentioned you'd tried sex, but... the lady is supposed to have an orgasm. So, in case she didn't, try, try again.
223: Pressure on the roof of the mouth is new. As for the other, I was under the impression that it's my magical prostaglandins (/sarcasm) that do cervical ripening. That being said, uterine contractions probably help, too.
castor oil
our old national labor inducing method was a bear oil not taken orally, just applied outside the belly
it's believed to be very effective, smelly though
223.2 is good advice, really regardless of the state or non-state of gestation.
Many brilliant amazing scholars wrote crummy dissertations. I like to remember that.
Oh, I see. Is the problem one of convincing your advisers that those other people really are as full of shit as you say, or is the problem one where you're not sure that they're as full of shit as you want to say they are?
Also: if this is annoying rather than helpful, feel free to tell me to bug off. And there might not be any way of helping with the problem, but in any case you have my sympathy.
The latter. Or, I'm sure they're full of shit, but I think it would take me much longer than I want to spend (in terms of pages) detailing why when the end result is 'so, these guys are all full of shit.'
This isn't about testicles anymore, is it?
It would be easier if there were testicles, because presumably the testicles wouldn't be saying 'I am exactly like that other testicle except I have a hat therefore you are strawmanning me.'
If you did Continental philosophy, Cala, you wouldn't have to bother with "arguments" and "strawmen."
In that case, I would say to get your view out and take some snarky potshots in the footnotes. It gives your committee something to ask about, and then you can eat up defense time explaining all the shit that these other people are full of, shit that you didn't have time fully to describe in the dissertation, but which is nonetheless, undeniably, shit.
233: If I did Continental philosophy... no, never mind.
Bitchphd, Lamarckian.
I'm sick of her Lamarckian malarkey.
Yggles shows how best to troll one's blog.
Does anyone else remember Petey as being a relatively sane commenter?
Congrats, Sybil.
from what I hear, pitocin isn't a fun time.
Anecdatally, pitocin sucked for my wife; its only effect after 42 hours—two sleepness nights in a room adjacent to the noisy nurses' station—was to soften us up for the c-section. Sex was unimaginable at that point.
Ooh, Paragard looks great. WANT.
I do have the copper-T IUD, (181: no, it doesn't set off metal detectors) and so far it's worked for six years or so. (Damn, Sybil, you have no luck at all.) And can recommend sex for labor induction, although admittedly I was due anyway, so it may just have been coincidence. But I have no real ideas for Bess, other than patience and fending off overeager medical personnel. And the baby will get out somehow. They all do.
I thought ye olde cunnilingus was supposed to help?
by the transitive property, if cunnilingus helps with orgasm, then it should help with whatever orgasm helps with.
I thought ye olde cunnilingus was supposed to help?
What, that old chestnut?
Those are ben-wa chestnuts. only use them at critical moments.
I think both orgasm and the topically applied prostaglandins are supposed to help, so it's all about intercourse. You just have to figure out how to make it enjoyable, which at nine months generally requires a fair amount of ingenuity, expenditure of effort, and perhaps some lifting tackle.
If memory serves, it isn't orgasm that induces labor; it's some dumbass chemical in semen. So you need the guy to come, but you're okay just lying there and saying things like "hurry up, dammit, I have to pee again."
How about a birth weight pissing contest then? I was 11 lbs, 2 oz.
I'm pretty sure I've *given* birth to a heavier baby than anyone else here has, so I win.
and perhaps some lifting tackle
We miss you around here, Elbee.
Ooh, Paragard looks great. WANT.
I was doing a google search, and I guess that there are many more options in Europe, including a frameless version. They thought that this would help with cramping, but it doesn't seem to, and it requires more skill to insert it.
The Belgian dude who is working on the frameless IUDs is developing something called the gyneplant which is a copper IUD with a miniscule (5 micrograms; compare with the Mirena's 20) amount of levonorgestrel. That sounds like it could be awesome. It would minimize the extra bleeding and cramping from the copper, and the amount of progestin wouldn't be enough to trigger amenorrheia and would probably not be enough to cause serious side effects in the hormonally sensitive.
Unfortunately, only the pro-frameless people are working on this.
You just have to figure out how to make it enjoyable, which at nine months generally requires a fair amount of ingenuity, expenditure of effort, and perhaps some lifting tackle.
bitchphd suggests that it only needs to be enjoyable for the man. Far, far easier.
It would minimize the extra bleeding and cramping from the copper, and the amount of progestin wouldn't be enough to trigger amenorrheia and would probably not be enough to cause serious side effects in the hormonally sensitive.
What's wrong with amenorrhœa?
exactly, amenorrhea would have prevented tragic outcomes like the one described in 251.
246 - my heaviest was 10lb 8. She was #4 though - you get extra weighting for #1!
And yeah BG, I got the Mirena. Putting it in was a traumatic disaster, but since then it's been fine. Don't think I'll be getting another one though.
Traumatic disaster, asilon? As in, it hurt a lot? Did they mess it up?
248 sounds great. What I want is another IUD, but one whose hormone levels are fixed so as to not make an ectopic pregnancy so likely. The pill and the ring make me sick-ish, but since my Mirena pregnancy was ectopic and resulted in my losing a tube, I am way leery of doing another IUD and losing the other tube.
It was scary, but fast. It played out quickly. Much harder is the anxiety I have every month that I've gotten pregnant again.
The spelling ben-wa is dominant, but anyone named Benoit should expect to here a joke about his balls from time to time.
256 - glad it was sorted quickly, but yikes for it all.
255 - hurt a LOT, much much more than I was expecting (considering smears, childbirth, etc were ok). The actual IUD is on a long applicator - they do something to open the IUD into the T shape, and then something else to detach it from the applicator so it stays in. So after the pain of getting it in, the fucking thing didn't detach from the applicator, and the whole painful thing had to be done again.
But all my friends with Mirenas had no such problems.
