www.ucsdguardian.org/cgi-bin/print?param=head_2002_12_02_03
Nearly 300 undergraduate females were recruited by Gordon Gallup, a psychology professor at State University of New York at Albany, to participate in a study on the effect of sperm on a woman's mood. The women answered survey questions about their sex lives, including questions on the amount of sex they have and how long it has been since their last sexual encounter. Gallup also administered a Beck Depression Inventory test, a standard questionnaire used by many researchers, to assess the women's mood. Gallup's results indicated that women who did not use condoms were significantly happier than those abstaining from sex or using condoms. The results also indicated that women who were having regular, unprotected sex felt worse the longer it had been since they stopped having sex. The same was not true for those women who regularly wore condoms. Since completing the initial study, Gallup has replicated it on a larger scale, using 700 women. The results for the second study also indicated that semen could have a positive effect on a woman's mood. Gallup attributes the mood enhancement to various hormones found in ejaculate. com in a July 2002 online interview that the good mood felt by women in a sexual relationship has to do more with intimacy than bare lovemaking. Contrary to Cutler's belief, Gallup maintains that intimacy did not confound the results of his experiment. Still, Gallup is quick to acknowledge that his results are not set in stone. "Simply having sex cannot account for their relative happiness," Gallup told Reuters Health in an online article published in November 2001. Critics of Gallup's theory maintain that his results cannot be conclusive because there are too many "confounding variables." In other words, there are too many other elements that could contribute to a woman's happiness besides regular exposure to semen via unprotected sex. Many female students at San Diego State University say women are more likely to be in a good mood because of a close, intimate relationship rather than from the sperm itself. "I think intimacy in a relationship would make a girl happier than exposure to a guy's semen," said freshman Allison Poirier. Senior Tiffany Rosales said she agrees with the notion that a woman's happiness has more to do with a relationship between two people. "Women can have unprotected sex and still be in a bad mood the next day if the sex is not with someone they like," she said. Some in the health community fear Gallup's study may be sending the wrong message to college-aged women, arguing that this study may be advocating unprotected sex. According to a recent survey of 8,500 undergraduates at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, 24 percent said they never use condoms. In light of studies such as Gallup's, health educators on college campuses warn students of the dangers of unprotected sex.
and in preventing pregnancy," said Rita Ruhter, a health educator at Student Health Services at SDSU. In his defense, Gallup said that advocating unprotected sex is the last thing he wants to do. "We are not advocating that people abstain from using condoms," Gallup told the Toronto Star in July of 2001.
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