When artificially inseminating sows Danish pig farmers simulate the copulatory action of the boar, and this is beautifully (dare I say romantically) demonstrated in a video shown during this talk by Mary Roach on TED: 10 things you didn't know about orgasm:
Do watch this video - it is throughly entertaining. For a quick overview, here are the ten facts about orgasm:
1. Unborn babies can have them.
2. You don't need genitals.
3. You can have them when you're dead.
4. Orgasm can cause bad breath.
5. And cure the hiccups.
6. Doctors once prescribed orgasm for fertility.
7. Pig farmers still do.
8. Female animals are having more fun than you think.
9. Studying human orgasm in a lab is not easy.
10. But it sure is entertaining.
Also tossed in: Week old human semen is of lower quality, so now men have an evolutionary excuse for masturbating.
There is a story going around that I have been unable to confirm, saying that more people named Ken move to Kentucky than expected on average. In the light of that it is no wonder that a pair of scientists by the names Masters and Johnson would be particularly interested in the science of orgasm, wouldn't you agree?
Also that people called Dennis are more likely to become dentists, etc.
ReplyDeleteI am not aware of the original data, but apparently it is not just made up out of whole cloth. I question how much this is cherry-picking, though... with so many names that sound like professions (and names that sound like places to live), we'd expect there to be a statistical correlation for a few of them... So is this really some subconscious effect at work? Or is it just the case that while there is a weird anomaly regarding dentists named Dennis, there is no such correlation for janitors named Jane, builders named Bill, etc.
Interesting point. I guess it's true that if Ken and Dennis are anomalies in the huge potential pool of such associations, then it could be coincidental.
ReplyDelete