The Magical Power of Semen & How it Can Hijack Your Brain

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Adina Rivers

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Lover of Life, Love & Sensuality. Optimist. Believer. Natural Beauty Advocate. Minimalist. Living life outside the box; where the magic happens.

Menno Schilthuizen wrote an amazing book call In Nature’s Nether Regions where he explains how the chemical cocktail found in semen can hijack the female brain. The study has only been performed in insects so far, but who knows, maybe soon they will uncover the same magical effects of semen on the human brain?

The Magical Powers of Semen

“We already know that, even in humans, there is more to this substance than meets the eye. It contains proteins that, when mixed together, can forge a mating plug. It also contains sugars as sperm fuel, proteins that protect the sperm cells from the acidic vaginal environment, zinc that keeps the sperm’s DNA in good shape, and chemical compounds that prevent the sperm cells from becoming overly enthusiastic prematurely.

But this list of ingredients is just the tip of the iceberg. Human ejaculates are home to hundreds of different proteins […]. Even in the ejaculate of the lowly banana fly Drosophila melanogaster, researchers have identified no fewer than 133 different kinds of proteins. One hundred and thirty-three! And this excludes the many proteins that are in the sperm cells themselves. […] 

[…]Banana fly researchers are quite confident that some of the ingredients of these biochemical cocktails are involved in a kind of neuropsychological manipulation. They hijack a female’s hormonal system by shutting down her sex drive, causing her to go completely off males for up to several days after having received a load of semen.

Must Read: 5 F*cked Up Myths About Men’s Sexuality

Females that have recently been inseminated start kicking away their suitors or, when harassed, extend their egg-laying tube, which blocks access to the vagina. They even begin exuding a scent that renders them unattractive. All this is induced by semen components that end up in her bloodstream. […] The whole process is akin to leaving a mental mating plug.

How Can The Power of Semen Hijack Your Brain

One of the substances that has  such an “antiaphrodisiac” effect is sex peptide, a small protein molecule—small enough to pass straight through the wall of the vagina into the female’s bloodstream—that is produced in the glands that sit next to a male fly’s genitalia. […]

The sex peptide that is floating free in the semen does its work quickly: even before mating is fully over, it has already seeped through the vagina wall into the female’s blood where it makes the female’s interest in other males plummet.

The initial shot of sex peptide causes females to give males the cold shoulder. Meanwhile, the sex peptide that sits on the sperm tails is beginning to break free, sustaining a steady IV drip of antiaphrodisiac that lasts for about a week—enough time to give the sperm a free passage, unchallenged by other males’ sperm.

The Secret Is In Semen’s Chemical Cocktail

Sex peptide is only one of the multitude of chemical compounds in semen. What do the rest do? Well, research in other insects can give us an inkling of what such substances might be capable of.

The semen of the American fire beetle Neopyrochroa flabellata, for example, is spiked with the poisonous compound cantharidin known as the infamous aphrodisiac “Spanish Fly”.

Another substance, the protein PSP1, is ejaculated by the male corn earworm moth into his mate and there immediately shuts down the production of pheromones, meaning that other males (which totally rely on scent) can no longer find her.

Do you know that women also ejaculate? Find more here: Squirting 101: A Splishy-Splashy Guide for Evolved People

And then there’s Argas persicus. In this tick, believe it or not, the male produces a soda-bottle-like spermatophore from his genitalia, takes it into his jaws, bites off the cap, and then sticks it, neck first, into the female’s vagina. […] And at least one of these contents is a compound that cranks up the female’s egg production rate—which may mean more offspring to be sired by these sperm.

What’s So Special About  Semen

This makes one wonder whether some of the many proteins in human semen could have manipulative effects. If they do, this would be one way to explain the results of a study by Gordon Gallup and Rebecca Burch, where they had almost three hundred female students fill out questionnaires relating to sex and mental health.

The results showed that women who always use a condom, and so are protected against the effects of proteins in the semen, score almost 50 percent higher on a scale of depression-related symptoms than women who never use condoms, which might indicate (but doesn’t prove) that substances in semen interfere with the female nervous system.

There is also evidence that pregnant women who have unprotected sex with their partner during pregnancy are less likely to suffer from so-called preeclampsia than women who use a condom.

This might mean that substances in the semen take over part of the regulation of the woman’s immune system.” In Nature’s Nether Regions by Menno Schilthuizen

Crazy isn’t it?

Studies like this, show us how much we still don’t know about the ways in which sex influences our brain. But it is definitely clear that making love has a profound impact on us physically, emotionally, and mentally. That is why is can make you “lose your mind” and it can feel so incredibly surreal.

Please, share with us what do you think about the power of semen & Menno Schilthuizen discoveries.

By Menno Schilthuizen  | Featured Artist: Thomas Sailot