Could Semen Boost Your Mood?

Did your significant other hack the website, or is there something to this headline?

According to researchers at SUNY Albany, an apple a day may keep the doctor away, but a…well, we’ll let you finish the rest of the sentence. In a nutshell: nature’s anti-depressant isn’t copious amount of chocolate and episodes of Real Housewives…it’s semen! (We’ll wait until the guys stop cheering…)

Researchers Gordon Gallup, Rebecca Burch, and Steven Platek surveyed almost 293 college women at SUNY Albany about their sex lives. They also gave them the Beck Depression Inventory, a standard test for mood. What they found was that women who engage in unprotected sex tended to show fewer depressive symptoms and an elevated mood compared to women who either always or usually used condoms or those who were celibate.

The study controlled for factors like relationships, amount of sex, hormonal birth control use, and more, and still found the correlation between mood and semen. What’s it all about? The answer is in your vagina, obviously. Vaginal tissue is absorptive, and semen really does have a bunch of mood-elevating compounds like oxytocin, endorphins, and serotonin. Put those two together (literally), and you’ve got a homemade cure for the blues. Another theory is that women’s bodies can recognize the sperm of recurrent partners, triggering a feeling of closeness and lovey-doveyness (explains why you spent your early twenties sleeping with your ex, too!)

Of course, don’t rush off to have unprotected sex all willy-nilly to deal with a bad day at work. Semen may turn that frown upside down for a while, but an unplanned pregnancy or STD can be a serious mood-killer. (Surprise! It’s chlamydia! Here’s a party hat.) But hey, this study isn’t totally useless to you…it makes for great cocktail party conversation, at the very least. (And post-menopausal women in monogamous relationships, knock yourselves out!)

Read more: Love, Sex, mood, semen, sperm

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Gigi D.

7:48PM PDT on Jun 2, 2013

All smiles here.

June 2
send a green star

Fernando K.

8:22AM PDT on May 30, 2013

OK, does the semen mood enhancing effect works only if absorbed in the vagina or it works if swallowed too?
Thanks.
Fernando

May 30
send a green star

Magdalen B.

4:10AM PDT on Mar 13, 2013

And your advice is?

March 13
send a green star

Natasha S.

3:09AM PST on Feb 8, 2013

Guess I'll never know!!!! Thanks

February 8
send a green star

Connie T.

6:36PM PST on Dec 29, 2012

Sooooo, one for the boys.....

December 29
send a green star

Rachel V.

6:24PM PST on Dec 29, 2012

There's an obvious explanation for this. Women who have unprotected sex tend to be in committed relationships, so it's more likely that it's the love and trust within that relationship that are related to women being less depressed--not semen alone.

Nimue P.

8:12PM PST on Nov 22, 2012

OK :)

November 22
send a green star

Melanie V.

1:07AM PST on Nov 10, 2012

All right... I giggled at the party hat. I actually had a boyfriend tell me this once and I, of course, thought he was making it up. Now, I realize that there's a possibility, but deep down inside I still can't help but roll my eyes and go, "yeah, right!" hehehe!