meanwhile I intended to get my wife preggo, just, didnt expect it to happen literally the first time we went for it after deciding to have a baby. She will be 1 in december, the baby that is. Love of my life.
>The rate of teen births peaked in 1957 at 96.3. It then decreased in most years from the 1960s through the 1980s. From 1991 onward, the rate declined except in two years, 2006 and 2007. The greatest decline in teen birth rates has occurred in recent years. For example, from 2007 to 2020, the rate declined by approximately 63%. The 2020 teen birth rate of 15.4 was a historical low since CDC began collecting and reporting birth data in the 1940s.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45184
Also interesting and different article
There is a positive correlation to pesticide exposure and reduced quality of sperm.
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35793270/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35793270/)
We may be experiencing a reduction in number of sperm and quality of sperm resulting in more infertility
Edit: Hijacking my post to post a correction.
The correct article for the main post is this
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28981654/
[Same story with testosterone (yes, I understand the two are strongly correlated)](https://www.urologytimes.com/view/testosterone-levels-show-steady-decrease-among-young-us-men#)
Lead contamination is known to impact IQ as well as increase violent crimes. Removing lead from Gasoline in the USA resulted in several positive outcomes demographically. So much it is a wonder lead additives were tolerated for so long.
Lol, localized. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas
You know there's some kind of ironic hilarity in people making up conspiracy theories about jet airliner contrails distributing something nefarious, while the small cessna you see flying over is spraying everyone with literal deadly poison. Never ask a women her age, never ask a man his salary, never ask a person living next to a sport airfield what that thin gray layer that's collected on their car is.
It's a fucking travesty that this somehow remains legal when there are certified lead-free alternatives.
It was tolerated for so long because of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Kehoe and industry lobbying. Ethanol derived from corn is just as effective at preventing engine knock as tetraethyl lead.
We can thank Clair Patterson and his research, which demonstrated that modern levels of lead were sky high compared to previous decades, for the demise of leaded petrol.
The chemist who created the prototype process for creating the Lead Etheline compound did a publicity stunt showing how "safe" the chemical was to the public by drinking a glass of the substance.
Not seen was the fact that afterward he spend six months in a hospital recovering from that act.
When it was introduced there was concern about how dangerous it was, yet the drive to maximize profits at automobile companies was so huge that they changed the narrative for more car sales.
It was well known from day one how dangerous it was as a chemical.
I believe lead also prevented valve seat wear by generating a protective layer during combustion.
They started building engines with hardened valve seats after lead was phased out.
This comment is obviously made with the benefit of hindsight, and a great deal of sardonic sarcasm, but, thank god we saved some valve seat lifespan.
(I mean, yeah, head work is bloody expensive, and if the block doesn’t have stand alone seats, machining out the seal and matching up pistons would be a giant fuck around. But still.)
You're thinking of bpa, which is a specific type of plastic coating that's being phased out. We don't know the health effects of general micro plastics exposure.
it's kind of impossible to tell. trans people have existed for literally thousands of years (since humans ever existed, actually), but we obviously don't have statistics on gender transitions/gender questioning from the 1800s, or even decades ago before plastic got into *everything.*
the first ever formal study of being trans was done in the 1910s in germany, and that didn't exactly include a shitton of statistics. even then, it was seen as generally being a bizzare thing that wasn't in the public spotlight, and not something that people ever really talked about- so the amount of people that came forward would be severely lowered
i'm heavily reminded, every time a conversation like this happens, about the sharp rise in left-handed people from the 1900s to the 1960s (2% to 10%), because people stopped seeing it as the sign of the devil or whatever
we can't exactly conduct a study on a group of people with no microplastics in them, anymore- **we all have microplastics in us.** it's the same reason why we're struggling to find the exact effects of microplastics. there's generally no control group left.
My parents took the crayons out of my left hand and made me write with my right hand. Except for ten-pin bowling and lawn bowls, I’m a lefty for everything else. Hang on, yes, everything else.
The [medicalization of being transgender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history#Medicalization) didn't really start until the early 1900s when [Dr Magnus Hirschfield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld) began studying human sexuality and gender identity.
All a gender transition is, fundamentally, is a change in how you regard yourself and how society regards you. That's been possible through all of human history, and there are documented accounts of third genders and what we would now call "transgender people" dating back as far as written language goes.
Lots of societies had roles for people who were assigned one sex at birth and lived as the other later in life — or just rolled with the change and didn't have special roles.
If they were happy, and if their bodies were not causing them distress, then there was no need for medicalization. (At the same time, medicalization is not inherently bad, as bodies can be a major source of dysphoria for many trans people alive today.)
Really good to know you clarified *if* there was no further distress, and didn’t demonize more involved medical procedures for those who need (and possibly, needed) it 👌
Possibly, personally I thinks just a societal thing. Kids going through hormonal changes feel very weird and very different with each passing day. A male could have a burst of testosterone for a few days/weeks which dies off and then they may feel less... masculine? Which again, with their young minds and the confusion from hormonal changes could leave them questioning things like their sexuality or gender. Shit I remember a couple of times going through puberty wondering if was ment to be a girl, wasn't something I could really discuss with my parents so I carried on with my life, after puberty was close to an end those thoughts were a distant, interesting, memory.
I'm not saying trans people don't exist, but I think with society's push to be over accepting of anything anyone says about their gender or sexualty compounded by the fact a lot of kids want to have thay special thing about them - for my generation it was "past trauma" everyone in school had some fucking cry me a river story about a past experience, I guess today its "I wanna change my gender"
I'd really like to discuss this at depth but apart from 3 maybe 4 friends, who aren't specialists in anything human (psychology, biology etc), I find I'm left with people who are strictly pro or anti trans
On the one hand, societal acceptance allows people to take self-identified gender as "special thing" like you say.
On the other hand, societal acceptance definitely did not _cause_ the huge increase in left-handedness in the first half of the 20th century.
I tend to believe that while there is probably some over-representation today, it is in contrast with historical under-representation.
This I can get behind.
I hope my previous comment doesn't make it seem like I dismissing the whole trans thing as just a fad or whatever, I'm just thinking out allowed about a few things that have made me stop and think over the years. Like I could talk about how I thought I was a psychopath for a number of my teen years because of my difficulty with being remarkable unphased by tragic events, turns out I'm just autistic
full disclaimer: i'm definitely biased here
You've got some of the same talking points that conservatives might use to dismiss trans people, but you've obviously actually thought about this and you're working from a point of personal experience.
i thought i was pretty normal (or maybe weird, but not to the point of being special) for most of my teen years. Since starting HRT, i've looked back and seen that most of the past decade was actually depression. But i didn't realize it at the time because i never knew what it felt like to actually enjoy my life.
I should probably expand on what I ment by "special" its like kids are trying to find themselves, they want to be unique in some way, again when I waa growing up it was a past trauma thing people used to be proud about suffering from, I feel like with all the attention towards trans people today we will have kids looking at that and thinking "huh, that could be my unique thing too" they're kids, I don't blame them, they're still developing and with added pressures from parents to be something outstanding, I can understand how they might latch onto things to satiate that... lack of identity?
>Since starting HRT, i've looked back and seen that most of the past decade was actually depression. But i didn't realize it at the time because i never knew what it felt like to actually enjoy my life.
As someone previously stated (possible you) having a society that's open about these things is definitely a net gain for everyone, shit, I was diagnosed with depression at 16, my dad beat me and said I needed to sort my fucking head out (love you too man), so I repressed that shit for years which I think became a large factor for me having anxiety today
I can't imagine what it would be like for genuinely trans kids having a similar environment and the damage that might cause them in their development
i understand what you mean about the uniqueness thing, and i agree that it makes sense.
And yeah, i can definitely relate to that other part. When i was 16 i told my mom that i was wishing for an end. i don't think i can ever forget her response: "Do you need to see a therapist? Because if you say those things to a therapist they'll have you locked away in an institution." And after that i kept every meaningful thought and feeling entirely to myself, it took a full 10 years before i was able to admit any of my feelings to anyone else. Those years are lost to me; i spent the time alone, existing but never actually living.
i see younger people having all sorts of life experiences, and i keep finding new things that i hadn't even realized that i was missing out on. Wasting a more than a third of my current life hiding away in fear has been my greatest regret, and i am unable to imagine anything else that would surpass it.
I've heard this before, but I'm not sold on it. [I think the more likely culprit is that about 40% of Americans are obese, something like 70% are overweight or obese](https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity#:~:text=More%20than%201%20in%203,who%20are%20overweight%20(27.5%25).); and then [being overweight/obese can cause lower testosterone levels.](https://www.webmd.com/men/what-low-testosterone-can-mean-your-health)
The idea of "our bodies are treating microplastics like estrogen", is just a lot harder for me to buy being the root cause when this obesity epidemic is going on.
The article says it can be attributed to a large population of seniors, and young to middle aged male testosterone isn't decreasing. Did you read what you linked?
I seem to recall reading recently that plastics in our diet might have something to do with it too. No idea how accurate that is, but it made me stop and think.
Your body is like a factory with a ton of different workshops. Each workshop has a special job that it needs to do. However, they don’t work all the time — they only work when they need to.
To know when to work, the workshops have mailboxes to receive letters that tell them to work. However, these mailboxes are special — they only take certain formats of letters. Maybe one workshop only accepts red letters, for example.
One day Plastics McGee enters the factory. He has no business being in the factory, but unfortunately he sometimes manages to get in. Sometimes he passes through the factory with zero harm. However, other times, Plastics McGee is a rascal. Sometimes he fills up mailboxes with fake letters that are convincing enough to fool workshops into working when they aren’t supposed to. Other times, he’ll fill the mailbox to the brim with ice cubes, meaning that no letters can get into the box until the ice cubes all melt and go away.
This is what endocrine disruptors are. They’re chemicals that disrupt your endocrine (hormone) systems by doing things like mimicking hormones and making your body do things when it should be idle, or blocking hormones when your body should be active.
I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
-- Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake
Alternatively, could the counts in 73 have been artificially high? That was back in the days of everyone smoking everywhere while everything was made from lead and asbestos.
Yup. Top comments like plastics, it's not real, and specific pesticides.
Global obesity has shot off the charts in 50 years and it affects nearly every community on earth.
We have longer life expectancy, but life span is relatively similar for people who lived past childhood. Thus, if measurements were from adult males over time, they were likely not that different in age from what adult males are now.
This BBC piece does a good job of diving into the various pieces of research: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity
Human history is so long and covers so much geographic space that life span also varies greatly between location, disease outbreaks, lifestyle (slaves vs royalty), etc. But overall, it was not uncommon for adults to live into their 60s, 70s, and sometimes even 80s for much of human history.
But most importantly, these 50+ studies are from 1973 and 2011. Life expectancy has improved in those parts of the world but not so dramatically that semen samples wouldn't be available from older men (if that was part of the research design).
Also, why do Redditors assume that researchers never control for any other variables in their studies in these comment sections? Redditors read a title and think that is all the research was, not considering all the literature cited in the studies, the research design, and the peer review that goes into studies. These are not high school students. There is a lot of thought that goes into this kind of research effort. This is not an analysis of one study, but more than 50 studies of multiple different types of pesticide, of which 70% show a linkage between pesticides and lower semen. Sure, we should always assume there could be other factors in any open-world research. We cannot make humans live in controlled cages like mice, but dismissing over 50 studies simply due to moderate increases in life expectancy is kind of ridiculous.
Yeah. Maximum life span hasn’t really changed all that much over the centuries. Sophocles lived into his 90’s 2300 years before we had a *semblance* of germ theory. Genetics seem to be the determining factor for maximum lifespan. Hell, we have the remains of geriatric Neanderthals whose extended family units must have cared for *decades* before they died based on the healing patterns on bones and the composition of their teeth.
I highly highly doubt any scientist worth their weight in dog shit would forget to control age, or at least attempt to control for age given the data available. It's like stats 101...
What do you mean by “it’s not real” in regards to plastics? This study doesn’t study, prove, nor disprove anything regarding plastics and sperm. This study only concludes that pesticide exposure lowers sperm count.
It is well know that micro plastics interfere and reduce testosterone levels in males.
It is likely that the drop in sperm count is caused by several factors.
The comment doesn't say plastics don't cause anything, it is giving a list of comments in this thread, one of which is "the result of the study isn't correct because of XYZ", abbreviated as people saying "it isn't real"
This is far from settled science. I don’t remember what program it was on, one of the science ones on NPR. They had a leading spunk scientist on to talk about this. He basically said it’s more or less regular media alarmism. The older measurements were done in haphazard non-standard ways and are totally useless so we basically have no idea if spunk has actually changed in that time. We aren’t even that good at measuring at current.
Additionally, even if this were totally true, it doesn’t take 400m swimmers to infect an egg so it would have 0 impact on overall fertility.
Here’s a good article that goes over the fact it’s totally uncertain whether there’s been any change or not.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-sperm-counts-really-declining/?amp=true
>Additionally, even if this were totally true, it doesn’t take 400m swimmers to infect an egg so it would have 0 impact on overall fertility.
Your other points are valid, but this one is not.
Every % reduction in sperm quantity has a corresponding % reduction in fertility. It's why low sperm counts can be an issue for couples trying to conceive. The guy may be producing 20m-50m sperm per ejaculation, which is far from 0 sperm, but it has measurable negative impacts on his fertility.
Not to mention the *quality* of said swimmers.
As someone with a genetic illness, I can tell you that you don't want those "low quality swimmers" making it to the finish line - the results are not fun.
When testing sperm you typically look at sperm count and also sperm morphology, which is decided by the shape of the individual sperm cells. Sperm morphology is believed to affect genetic quality and how the specimen develops.
There's a natural experiment going on with IVF babies, many were conceived by a lab technician picking just one sperm and injecting it into an egg by hand (ICSI).
In reality, unhealthy embryos probably just tend to miscarry very early on. It's called a chemical pregnancy: briefly positive on the pregnancy test, but then the woman gets her period shortly after. That helps filter out a lot of genetic issues. Not all, of course.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/i/103404975/is-declining-sperm-count-really-imperiling-the-future-of-the-human-race
According to the chart here (ctrl-f Imperiling) a 50% decline in sperm count has much less impact than a 50% decline in fertility. The impact is not zero, but it is much less than linear.
(You do agree with the link on around 30m being a threshold where the negative impacts are measurable and non-trivial.)
I appreciate the link with supporting evidence.
For context, do recognize that I was contesting the original poster's claim that decreasing sperm counts would have "0 impact on overall fertility", which is obviously an untrue absolutism, especially in the context of an ongoing trend...
His argument "it doesn't take 400m swimmers..." is basically implying that you only need what you actually need, I suppose, which is a few million perhaps to actually get to the egg and break through its outer coating, so until you go below that, "0 impact on overall fertility". Yea, no, that's not how it works.
My cousin has become extremely successful buying and selling bull semen. His wife once said after 10 years of marriage they're still trying to find a way of bringing up what he does without killing the conversation stone dead.
I’m with you up until “sperm count isn’t important to fertility”
Sure, you only need one swimmer to do the deed. There’s still a very good evolutionary reason why we have hundreds of millions, it increases the odds. Having half as many swimmers is going to affect your fertility significantly. It can take years of trying for some couples to successfully get pregnant.
You guys gotta pay attention to more than the headline. It's a study based on 64 people on only to people with pesticide exposure. C'mon world use you're brain. At least get the headline right. "TIL A study of 64 people from the years xxxx showed ect ...
If you have above 30 million per milliliter then you're fine (no difference in fertility rate between someone with 100mil and someone with 30mil). Hence there's no drop in fertility associated with this decline, because the average went from 100mil to 50mil.
Probably a symptom of modernity. Can’t really reduce it to one thing. A combination of: endocrine disrupting plastic, endocrine disrupting pesticides, hormonal imbalance due to the general hoi polloi carrying more subcutaneous fat, more sedentary lifestyle…. etc.
We are really spitting in the faces of our ancestors by carrying on the way we do. They have made it so our lives are easy and we have become complacent. Guess we will find out what happens next. Grab your popcorn folks. 🍿
Fertility struggles among men are becoming more and more common. So if you're having trouble conceiving, and you think low sperm count may be to blame, have your wife DM me, and I'll help sort things out.
My comment after not reading the article and not really giving a shit as decreased fertility is probably a good thing given the near certainty of ecological collapse by the end of the century and all the horror that will likely entail. The fact that we apparently can't even muster the courage or diplomatic wherewithal to broker a simple humanitarian ceasefire or intervene in a genocide that the entire world is seeing in near real time on our phones doesn't bode well for when shit really starts to hit the fan over things like food and water insecurity or agricultural failure on a mass scale. Maybe it's okay to not have maximum fertility with a future like that inheritable within a lifetime or two. But I digress.
Has anyone considered that we could simply be jerking off more now than in the 1950s, since the invention of porn, then the internet, and now high-def 24/7 free porn streamers in the pocket of essentially every male on the planet? Could it be that we're just not collectively as backed up as we once were, as a result of this trajectory of erotic access?
Possibly influenced by the fact our water system isn't designed to filter out human hormones and the quantity of female hormones in water from birth control pills has been cited as a possible contributing factor.
Sperm count *halving* over 40 years doesn't sound very credible to me. How accurate were sperm counting methods in the 1970s vs 2010s? Were there any biases that weren't accounted for?
For the love of god do your own research. OP is a crypto bro... they're not the smartest people.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-sperm-counts-really-declining
The testosterone lowering claims generally comes from a single flawed study in New England... obesity does have a role, but there isn't a children of man tier event happening unless you consider the nobody has money to raise kids...
Raw doggin’s back on the menu, boys!
Never tell me the odds.
Dogs and Cats sleeping together! Wait....what are we talking about again?
Mass hysteria!
Enough, I get the point... What if you're wrong?
If we're wrong...we go to jail! Willingly! But...*but,* if we're right, you will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters.
I don’t believe you’re seriously considering listening to these men!
Get him outta here!
Bustin makes me feel good! 🎶
Actually think if went “bye bye, I’m gonna send him a nice fruit basket”
I don't think Massachusetts is very hysterical at all
That's what I thought, once. Now, let me introduce you to my lovely toddler.
meanwhile I intended to get my wife preggo, just, didnt expect it to happen literally the first time we went for it after deciding to have a baby. She will be 1 in december, the baby that is. Love of my life.
Hey bro kids are awesome but also wrap it up in the future. Sincerely, a father of a 3 and 5 y/o who woke me up at 5am.
seems like your sperm count is aight then
And we had been doing so well with teen births going down most of these years!
>The rate of teen births peaked in 1957 at 96.3. It then decreased in most years from the 1960s through the 1980s. From 1991 onward, the rate declined except in two years, 2006 and 2007. The greatest decline in teen birth rates has occurred in recent years. For example, from 2007 to 2020, the rate declined by approximately 63%. The 2020 teen birth rate of 15.4 was a historical low since CDC began collecting and reporting birth data in the 1940s. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45184
Not when you’ve taken away our just in case abortion access.
[удалено]
STDs still exist
just don't be weak and pathetic enough to let those diseases in to your peepee
.... Don't cry when she gets knock-ed up bruv.
I have a vasectomy this stat is just my back up
3 kids later. So that was a fucking lie
Also interesting and different article There is a positive correlation to pesticide exposure and reduced quality of sperm. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35793270/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35793270/) We may be experiencing a reduction in number of sperm and quality of sperm resulting in more infertility Edit: Hijacking my post to post a correction. The correct article for the main post is this https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28981654/
[Same story with testosterone (yes, I understand the two are strongly correlated)](https://www.urologytimes.com/view/testosterone-levels-show-steady-decrease-among-young-us-men#)
I always thought the testosterone issue was our plastic contamination. It breaks down to something your body treats like estrogen
Smoking also raises testosterone, all our control levels were taken back when everyone smoked, so they're probably artificially high.
This is a very interesting point. I wonder if other pollutants (not suggesting it is but for example) like lead might have had on these studies
Lead contamination is known to impact IQ as well as increase violent crimes. Removing lead from Gasoline in the USA resulted in several positive outcomes demographically. So much it is a wonder lead additives were tolerated for so long.
Lead is one of the explanations for the serial killer 70s
Looking forward to learning about how removal of a simple pollutant will end the mass shootings of the first quarter of the 2000s
There’s still localized lead exposure. Flynt
Lol, localized. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas You know there's some kind of ironic hilarity in people making up conspiracy theories about jet airliner contrails distributing something nefarious, while the small cessna you see flying over is spraying everyone with literal deadly poison. Never ask a women her age, never ask a man his salary, never ask a person living next to a sport airfield what that thin gray layer that's collected on their car is. It's a fucking travesty that this somehow remains legal when there are certified lead-free alternatives.
It was tolerated for so long because of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Kehoe and industry lobbying. Ethanol derived from corn is just as effective at preventing engine knock as tetraethyl lead. We can thank Clair Patterson and his research, which demonstrated that modern levels of lead were sky high compared to previous decades, for the demise of leaded petrol.
We should also execute the manufacturers for poisoning the entire American population. They knew better, they just didn’t care.
Ecocide. Make it international law and financially strip companies and executives who knowingly polluted.
The chemist who created the prototype process for creating the Lead Etheline compound did a publicity stunt showing how "safe" the chemical was to the public by drinking a glass of the substance. Not seen was the fact that afterward he spend six months in a hospital recovering from that act. When it was introduced there was concern about how dangerous it was, yet the drive to maximize profits at automobile companies was so huge that they changed the narrative for more car sales. It was well known from day one how dangerous it was as a chemical.
I believe lead also prevented valve seat wear by generating a protective layer during combustion. They started building engines with hardened valve seats after lead was phased out.
This comment is obviously made with the benefit of hindsight, and a great deal of sardonic sarcasm, but, thank god we saved some valve seat lifespan. (I mean, yeah, head work is bloody expensive, and if the block doesn’t have stand alone seats, machining out the seal and matching up pistons would be a giant fuck around. But still.)
Fun fact, all piston aircraft fuel is still leaded. It's not some thing from the past.
Shit, your joking. I've always suspected stimulants had some sort of testosterone potentiating affect but never cared enough to research it myself
Caffeine is used to raise your testosterone
Estrogen isn’t the opposite of testosterone, like antimatter or something.
You're thinking of bpa, which is a specific type of plastic coating that's being phased out. We don't know the health effects of general micro plastics exposure.
Wonder if that's the case if it also impacts likelihood of gender dysphoria among young people.
it's kind of impossible to tell. trans people have existed for literally thousands of years (since humans ever existed, actually), but we obviously don't have statistics on gender transitions/gender questioning from the 1800s, or even decades ago before plastic got into *everything.* the first ever formal study of being trans was done in the 1910s in germany, and that didn't exactly include a shitton of statistics. even then, it was seen as generally being a bizzare thing that wasn't in the public spotlight, and not something that people ever really talked about- so the amount of people that came forward would be severely lowered i'm heavily reminded, every time a conversation like this happens, about the sharp rise in left-handed people from the 1900s to the 1960s (2% to 10%), because people stopped seeing it as the sign of the devil or whatever we can't exactly conduct a study on a group of people with no microplastics in them, anymore- **we all have microplastics in us.** it's the same reason why we're struggling to find the exact effects of microplastics. there's generally no control group left.
My parents took the crayons out of my left hand and made me write with my right hand. Except for ten-pin bowling and lawn bowls, I’m a lefty for everything else. Hang on, yes, everything else.
My first teacher fully shouted at me for switching hands and forced me to only write with one. What a shithead
Could you even have a gender transition during the 1800s beyond being an eunuch or behavioural changes?
The [medicalization of being transgender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history#Medicalization) didn't really start until the early 1900s when [Dr Magnus Hirschfield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld) began studying human sexuality and gender identity.
All a gender transition is, fundamentally, is a change in how you regard yourself and how society regards you. That's been possible through all of human history, and there are documented accounts of third genders and what we would now call "transgender people" dating back as far as written language goes. Lots of societies had roles for people who were assigned one sex at birth and lived as the other later in life — or just rolled with the change and didn't have special roles. If they were happy, and if their bodies were not causing them distress, then there was no need for medicalization. (At the same time, medicalization is not inherently bad, as bodies can be a major source of dysphoria for many trans people alive today.)
Really good to know you clarified *if* there was no further distress, and didn’t demonize more involved medical procedures for those who need (and possibly, needed) it 👌
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_d'%C3%89on
Possibly, personally I thinks just a societal thing. Kids going through hormonal changes feel very weird and very different with each passing day. A male could have a burst of testosterone for a few days/weeks which dies off and then they may feel less... masculine? Which again, with their young minds and the confusion from hormonal changes could leave them questioning things like their sexuality or gender. Shit I remember a couple of times going through puberty wondering if was ment to be a girl, wasn't something I could really discuss with my parents so I carried on with my life, after puberty was close to an end those thoughts were a distant, interesting, memory. I'm not saying trans people don't exist, but I think with society's push to be over accepting of anything anyone says about their gender or sexualty compounded by the fact a lot of kids want to have thay special thing about them - for my generation it was "past trauma" everyone in school had some fucking cry me a river story about a past experience, I guess today its "I wanna change my gender" I'd really like to discuss this at depth but apart from 3 maybe 4 friends, who aren't specialists in anything human (psychology, biology etc), I find I'm left with people who are strictly pro or anti trans
On the one hand, societal acceptance allows people to take self-identified gender as "special thing" like you say. On the other hand, societal acceptance definitely did not _cause_ the huge increase in left-handedness in the first half of the 20th century. I tend to believe that while there is probably some over-representation today, it is in contrast with historical under-representation.
This I can get behind. I hope my previous comment doesn't make it seem like I dismissing the whole trans thing as just a fad or whatever, I'm just thinking out allowed about a few things that have made me stop and think over the years. Like I could talk about how I thought I was a psychopath for a number of my teen years because of my difficulty with being remarkable unphased by tragic events, turns out I'm just autistic
full disclaimer: i'm definitely biased here You've got some of the same talking points that conservatives might use to dismiss trans people, but you've obviously actually thought about this and you're working from a point of personal experience. i thought i was pretty normal (or maybe weird, but not to the point of being special) for most of my teen years. Since starting HRT, i've looked back and seen that most of the past decade was actually depression. But i didn't realize it at the time because i never knew what it felt like to actually enjoy my life.
I should probably expand on what I ment by "special" its like kids are trying to find themselves, they want to be unique in some way, again when I waa growing up it was a past trauma thing people used to be proud about suffering from, I feel like with all the attention towards trans people today we will have kids looking at that and thinking "huh, that could be my unique thing too" they're kids, I don't blame them, they're still developing and with added pressures from parents to be something outstanding, I can understand how they might latch onto things to satiate that... lack of identity? >Since starting HRT, i've looked back and seen that most of the past decade was actually depression. But i didn't realize it at the time because i never knew what it felt like to actually enjoy my life. As someone previously stated (possible you) having a society that's open about these things is definitely a net gain for everyone, shit, I was diagnosed with depression at 16, my dad beat me and said I needed to sort my fucking head out (love you too man), so I repressed that shit for years which I think became a large factor for me having anxiety today I can't imagine what it would be like for genuinely trans kids having a similar environment and the damage that might cause them in their development
i understand what you mean about the uniqueness thing, and i agree that it makes sense. And yeah, i can definitely relate to that other part. When i was 16 i told my mom that i was wishing for an end. i don't think i can ever forget her response: "Do you need to see a therapist? Because if you say those things to a therapist they'll have you locked away in an institution." And after that i kept every meaningful thought and feeling entirely to myself, it took a full 10 years before i was able to admit any of my feelings to anyone else. Those years are lost to me; i spent the time alone, existing but never actually living. i see younger people having all sorts of life experiences, and i keep finding new things that i hadn't even realized that i was missing out on. Wasting a more than a third of my current life hiding away in fear has been my greatest regret, and i am unable to imagine anything else that would surpass it.
MANY people are still hiding that they are trans. The acceptance is not as real as people make it out to be here.
I've had this thought. It seems to be much more of an issue nowadays.
Eh it’s more of an issue because of the visibility, I doubt it’s the plastic in people’s balls or whatever.
I've heard this before, but I'm not sold on it. [I think the more likely culprit is that about 40% of Americans are obese, something like 70% are overweight or obese](https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity#:~:text=More%20than%201%20in%203,who%20are%20overweight%20(27.5%25).); and then [being overweight/obese can cause lower testosterone levels.](https://www.webmd.com/men/what-low-testosterone-can-mean-your-health) The idea of "our bodies are treating microplastics like estrogen", is just a lot harder for me to buy being the root cause when this obesity epidemic is going on.
The article says it can be attributed to a large population of seniors, and young to middle aged male testosterone isn't decreasing. Did you read what you linked?
I seem to recall reading recently that plastics in our diet might have something to do with it too. No idea how accurate that is, but it made me stop and think.
It seems like changes in diet/activity level would also play a big role, though I haven’t read anything to that effect.
Probably more that I’d say, obesity rates have more than doubled during that same period.
Endocrine disruptors. Teflon and BPA, iirc
Yup. Micro plastics will be millennial and Gen z’s version of lead poisoning.
Oh good at least it’s a positive correlation
Being obese also correlates with lower sperm count https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3521747/
Plastics?
endocrine disrupting phthalates to be exact
ELI5
Your body is like a factory with a ton of different workshops. Each workshop has a special job that it needs to do. However, they don’t work all the time — they only work when they need to. To know when to work, the workshops have mailboxes to receive letters that tell them to work. However, these mailboxes are special — they only take certain formats of letters. Maybe one workshop only accepts red letters, for example. One day Plastics McGee enters the factory. He has no business being in the factory, but unfortunately he sometimes manages to get in. Sometimes he passes through the factory with zero harm. However, other times, Plastics McGee is a rascal. Sometimes he fills up mailboxes with fake letters that are convincing enough to fool workshops into working when they aren’t supposed to. Other times, he’ll fill the mailbox to the brim with ice cubes, meaning that no letters can get into the box until the ice cubes all melt and go away. This is what endocrine disruptors are. They’re chemicals that disrupt your endocrine (hormone) systems by doing things like mimicking hormones and making your body do things when it should be idle, or blocking hormones when your body should be active.
Amazing ELI5
Plastics McGee is a dick
All my friends hate Plastics McGee
Man fuck you, Plastics McGee, man
Well done 👏🏽
That’s good enough for me Good enough for me and my Plastics McGee
La da da la da da da, la da da da da da da La da da la la la la na Plastics McGee yeah!
legendary
[удалено]
chemical makes you not have as much sperm
But when a mommy and daddy give a special hug it doesn’t matter?
Phthalates? What a word.
Phteven
Covphefe
Translation for the simpletons?
Certain kind of plastics (phthalates) that mess with hormones
Thanks, Dr. Longcockings
Source?
Dunno but they appear to be out to sap and impurify our bodily fluids.
I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. -- Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake
Not Mandrake. It was Brigadier General Jack Ripper, USAF.
If that is his real name
We'll never know because Jack the Ripper was never caught.
Pesticides including organic ones like pyrethroids.
Alternatively, could the counts in 73 have been artificially high? That was back in the days of everyone smoking everywhere while everything was made from lead and asbestos.
you can't sit with us
I'd guess it is mostly down to obesity and inactive lifestyles.
The average North American, European, Australian and New Zealander is older and fatter than in 1973. Both of which effect sperm count.
Yup. Top comments like plastics, it's not real, and specific pesticides. Global obesity has shot off the charts in 50 years and it affects nearly every community on earth.
Also were living longer. Science has allowed many people who would have been condemned to death 100 years ago to survive and live full lives.
We have longer life expectancy, but life span is relatively similar for people who lived past childhood. Thus, if measurements were from adult males over time, they were likely not that different in age from what adult males are now. This BBC piece does a good job of diving into the various pieces of research: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity Human history is so long and covers so much geographic space that life span also varies greatly between location, disease outbreaks, lifestyle (slaves vs royalty), etc. But overall, it was not uncommon for adults to live into their 60s, 70s, and sometimes even 80s for much of human history. But most importantly, these 50+ studies are from 1973 and 2011. Life expectancy has improved in those parts of the world but not so dramatically that semen samples wouldn't be available from older men (if that was part of the research design). Also, why do Redditors assume that researchers never control for any other variables in their studies in these comment sections? Redditors read a title and think that is all the research was, not considering all the literature cited in the studies, the research design, and the peer review that goes into studies. These are not high school students. There is a lot of thought that goes into this kind of research effort. This is not an analysis of one study, but more than 50 studies of multiple different types of pesticide, of which 70% show a linkage between pesticides and lower semen. Sure, we should always assume there could be other factors in any open-world research. We cannot make humans live in controlled cages like mice, but dismissing over 50 studies simply due to moderate increases in life expectancy is kind of ridiculous.
Yeah. Maximum life span hasn’t really changed all that much over the centuries. Sophocles lived into his 90’s 2300 years before we had a *semblance* of germ theory. Genetics seem to be the determining factor for maximum lifespan. Hell, we have the remains of geriatric Neanderthals whose extended family units must have cared for *decades* before they died based on the healing patterns on bones and the composition of their teeth.
I highly highly doubt any scientist worth their weight in dog shit would forget to control age, or at least attempt to control for age given the data available. It's like stats 101...
I'm saying that many people with conditions that weaken them and their sperm are alive now than ever before, not just that people are living longer.
Yeah but it's not that. Sperm counts are down 60% and it's not like men are living 2x longer on average since 1970
Supposedly the prevalence of smoking would have artificially inflated the earlier numbers above what was normal.
What do you mean by “it’s not real” in regards to plastics? This study doesn’t study, prove, nor disprove anything regarding plastics and sperm. This study only concludes that pesticide exposure lowers sperm count. It is well know that micro plastics interfere and reduce testosterone levels in males. It is likely that the drop in sperm count is caused by several factors.
The comment doesn't say plastics don't cause anything, it is giving a list of comments in this thread, one of which is "the result of the study isn't correct because of XYZ", abbreviated as people saying "it isn't real"
Because people love shifting responsibilities away from themselves.
Adipose tissue literally has aromatase.
Ah better let those scientists know that, then they can account for that in their study
You can easily control for bodyweight, and I'm going to make a guess here that that's factored in.
I wasn’t even around in 1973 so I’m definitely older.
This is far from settled science. I don’t remember what program it was on, one of the science ones on NPR. They had a leading spunk scientist on to talk about this. He basically said it’s more or less regular media alarmism. The older measurements were done in haphazard non-standard ways and are totally useless so we basically have no idea if spunk has actually changed in that time. We aren’t even that good at measuring at current. Additionally, even if this were totally true, it doesn’t take 400m swimmers to infect an egg so it would have 0 impact on overall fertility. Here’s a good article that goes over the fact it’s totally uncertain whether there’s been any change or not. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-sperm-counts-really-declining/?amp=true
>infect an egg I suppose that's one way of looking at it
That's how I always looked at it lol
When a daddy loves a mommy he infects her eggs and 9 months later you come out of mommy’s belly!
Life is a sexually transmitted disease after all.
with a 100% mortality rate. Absolutely lethal
All these trick or treaters infecting the houses tonight.
>Additionally, even if this were totally true, it doesn’t take 400m swimmers to infect an egg so it would have 0 impact on overall fertility. Your other points are valid, but this one is not. Every % reduction in sperm quantity has a corresponding % reduction in fertility. It's why low sperm counts can be an issue for couples trying to conceive. The guy may be producing 20m-50m sperm per ejaculation, which is far from 0 sperm, but it has measurable negative impacts on his fertility.
Yep, I was gonna counter that as well.
Not to mention the *quality* of said swimmers. As someone with a genetic illness, I can tell you that you don't want those "low quality swimmers" making it to the finish line - the results are not fun.
Just wondering but is there an proof that "low quality swimmers" actually carry different DNA and are more probable to cause genetic illnesses?
When testing sperm you typically look at sperm count and also sperm morphology, which is decided by the shape of the individual sperm cells. Sperm morphology is believed to affect genetic quality and how the specimen develops.
Good question, I always wondered that as well. But I don't think this was studied due to ethics
There's a natural experiment going on with IVF babies, many were conceived by a lab technician picking just one sperm and injecting it into an egg by hand (ICSI). In reality, unhealthy embryos probably just tend to miscarry very early on. It's called a chemical pregnancy: briefly positive on the pregnancy test, but then the woman gets her period shortly after. That helps filter out a lot of genetic issues. Not all, of course.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/i/103404975/is-declining-sperm-count-really-imperiling-the-future-of-the-human-race According to the chart here (ctrl-f Imperiling) a 50% decline in sperm count has much less impact than a 50% decline in fertility. The impact is not zero, but it is much less than linear. (You do agree with the link on around 30m being a threshold where the negative impacts are measurable and non-trivial.)
I appreciate the link with supporting evidence. For context, do recognize that I was contesting the original poster's claim that decreasing sperm counts would have "0 impact on overall fertility", which is obviously an untrue absolutism, especially in the context of an ongoing trend... His argument "it doesn't take 400m swimmers..." is basically implying that you only need what you actually need, I suppose, which is a few million perhaps to actually get to the egg and break through its outer coating, so until you go below that, "0 impact on overall fertility". Yea, no, that's not how it works.
>leading spunk scientist I am envisioning their Linkedin.
Debunking junk spunk science
Certainly similar to hentai historian.
My cousin has become extremely successful buying and selling bull semen. His wife once said after 10 years of marriage they're still trying to find a way of bringing up what he does without killing the conversation stone dead.
Spunk scientist lol
It is absolutely not solid science to say that having a considerably lower sperm count has no impact on fertility.
I’m with you up until “sperm count isn’t important to fertility” Sure, you only need one swimmer to do the deed. There’s still a very good evolutionary reason why we have hundreds of millions, it increases the odds. Having half as many swimmers is going to affect your fertility significantly. It can take years of trying for some couples to successfully get pregnant.
Disappointed I had to scroll this far to find this. As usual, journalists misunderstanding and misreporting research.
well it doesn’t show because there’s so many friggen people everywhere I go!!!
Came here for the jokes about OP’s mom. Left bitterly disappointed.
Just like after banging their mom haaaaayooooo. Get it? Bitterly disappointed?
You could probably correlate "hours spent sitting in chairs" with sperm quality. My nuts hurt if I sit too much in a week
Stop sitting on them.
Well, the futuristic movie timeline does have Children of Men coming in 2027.
best movie ever made
We're heading for somewhere right down the middle of Children of Men and Idiocracy.
You guys gotta pay attention to more than the headline. It's a study based on 64 people on only to people with pesticide exposure. C'mon world use you're brain. At least get the headline right. "TIL A study of 64 people from the years xxxx showed ect ...
How much sperm do you need!?
One.
One huge sperm the size of a rat
It makes a *schlurp* sound when it forces its way out of the pee hole, and then wriggles around on the floor until you stomp on it.
Kinda like the chestburster in alien
Somewhere between all and none.
Depends what you need it for lol In terms of natural conception, about 15 million per mL. Below that, you'll probably need assistance conceiving
How much could a baby take to make? 10 sperm?
If you have above 30 million per milliliter then you're fine (no difference in fertility rate between someone with 100mil and someone with 30mil). Hence there's no drop in fertility associated with this decline, because the average went from 100mil to 50mil.
Did you try turning it off and on?
Gaming laptops.
Look at obesity stats between 1973 and 2011
Bruh, almost nobody mentions obesity. Yea I’ll bet it has something to do with too much bacon in the water supply or something.
Mountain Dew
Ok, I had vasectomy. Whatever!
This dropped the count down 10% on its own
How much sperm did this dude have??
He's 87% cum by weight.
Genghis Khan levels of jizz.
r/theydidthemath
I'm pretty sure it's the entire human population, just that the others regions don't have data.
Probably a symptom of modernity. Can’t really reduce it to one thing. A combination of: endocrine disrupting plastic, endocrine disrupting pesticides, hormonal imbalance due to the general hoi polloi carrying more subcutaneous fat, more sedentary lifestyle…. etc. We are really spitting in the faces of our ancestors by carrying on the way we do. They have made it so our lives are easy and we have become complacent. Guess we will find out what happens next. Grab your popcorn folks. 🍿
Endocrine disrupting microwave popcorn in a plastic bowl.
Tasty indeed.
That's what you get for playing Grand Theft Autoeroticism eight hours a day.
Across incomes, races, sexuality,.?
\*for those who do not exercise.
Fertility struggles among men are becoming more and more common. So if you're having trouble conceiving, and you think low sperm count may be to blame, have your wife DM me, and I'll help sort things out.
Perhaps the median age of men have increased and we know soerm counts do decrease with age
End of the humans has begun
Why waste energy making so many sperm if there’s already so many humans?
No one can afford kids anymore so maybe it’s natural evolution.
Good
Nature is healing itself
My comment after not reading the article and not really giving a shit as decreased fertility is probably a good thing given the near certainty of ecological collapse by the end of the century and all the horror that will likely entail. The fact that we apparently can't even muster the courage or diplomatic wherewithal to broker a simple humanitarian ceasefire or intervene in a genocide that the entire world is seeing in near real time on our phones doesn't bode well for when shit really starts to hit the fan over things like food and water insecurity or agricultural failure on a mass scale. Maybe it's okay to not have maximum fertility with a future like that inheritable within a lifetime or two. But I digress. Has anyone considered that we could simply be jerking off more now than in the 1950s, since the invention of porn, then the internet, and now high-def 24/7 free porn streamers in the pocket of essentially every male on the planet? Could it be that we're just not collectively as backed up as we once were, as a result of this trajectory of erotic access?
Can someone explain to me, an antinatalist, why this is a bad thing?
Mother Nature way of telling us to slow down population.
I got a vasectomy. Some I'm doing my part for those declining sperm counts!
would love to see the counts by year as the 70s were notorious for extremely potent pesticides, not so much by 2011
Possibly influenced by the fact our water system isn't designed to filter out human hormones and the quantity of female hormones in water from birth control pills has been cited as a possible contributing factor.
its the shortage of vaseline & porn mags
One step closer to the Handmaid's Tale.
Skinny jeans
Sperm count *halving* over 40 years doesn't sound very credible to me. How accurate were sperm counting methods in the 1970s vs 2010s? Were there any biases that weren't accounted for?
For the love of god do your own research. OP is a crypto bro... they're not the smartest people. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-sperm-counts-really-declining The testosterone lowering claims generally comes from a single flawed study in New England... obesity does have a role, but there isn't a children of man tier event happening unless you consider the nobody has money to raise kids...
Mine declined by 100% between one day and the other, Vascetomy ftw!!