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October 04, 2007

Dept. of Belaboring the Obvious

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Is this a sentence that really needed to be written: "Sexual activity and orgasm have been shown to reduce stress (Charnetski & Brennan, 2001)."

I found this humdinger in "The Science of Orgasm," by Barry R. Komisaruk, Carlos Beyer-Flores, and Beverly Whipple, a book published by the prestigious Johns Hopkins Press. I'm sure glad that Komisaruk, Beyer-Flores, and Whipple cited a source to support their controversial statement!

Best,

Michael

posted by Michael at October 4, 2007

Comments

One of my jobs involved putting Federal documents on CDs for searching up statutes and regulations. This was the actual definition of death of a lab animal as defined by the FDA:

"Lack of reaction to gentle prodding."

Imagine how different our lives would be were that the definition of human death.

And I love the inclusion of "gentle" - like that had to be spelled out.

Posted by: yahmdallah on October 5, 2007 12:18 AM

That's a riot. Sounds like a description of me after a day at the office.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on October 5, 2007 12:26 AM

That's one of the funniest sentences I've ever read. Should be an album title.

Posted by: the patriarch on October 5, 2007 10:25 AM

14. Charnetski & Brennan, 2001 (op. cit.). The data were derived from a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled study of 400 graduate students. One group was given sexual activity 7x/day for 3 weeks, with stress levels tested 1x/day on the Fleed/Coriander Scale. The control group was given basket weaving exercises as a placebo 7x/day for 3 weeks, with stress levels measured at the same intervals and using the same methodology as the sexually treated group. Measurements confirmed that the sex-treated group had a median 47 percent less stress at the end of the study, which a chi-square test found to be statistically significant (p = 0.01). Anecdotal evidence confirmed the results.

Posted by: Rick Darby on October 5, 2007 12:21 PM