The little spermatozoon was ‘born’ in the seminiferous tubules neighborhood in testes city which is a part of the reproductive system state. He was a proud citizen of the country known as John Doe, but ever since the little spermatozoon was little he wanted to travel. So once he grew up to be as big and strong as a little spermatozoon could, he moved to a place called the epididymis. It was a fun place to live with tons of winding backroads, but the little spermatozoon missed some of his brother who lived in Vas Deferens instead.
Luckily, he decided to enter some kind of really big race outside of the country. He passed right through Vas Deferens on his way to the urethra airport and got to see some of his brothers! That’s when the little spermatozoon learned that TONS of his brothers were going to enter the race too! He really wanted to win this race. It was basically like his life depended on it, it meant so much to him. To get ready to do his best and hopefully beat all of his brothers the little spermatozoon ate at some really good restaurants on the way to the airport. You’ve probably heard of them! First, he stopped at the seminal vesicle and then the prostate gland. Right before he got to the airport he stopped to get his passport at Cowper’s gland too so he would be safe traveling outside of the country. After those stops he felt all set and ready to go on his trip!
Penis was his gates name at the airport where he exited to get on an airplane named ejaculation. From there the little spermatozoon was off to travel for his race and hopefully start a whole new adventure.
The End.
Okay, so I did something like this for food in the digestive system for a different class and thought it would be a fun blog for this week. I hope you enjoyed the story of the little spermatozoon and realized it was even funnier to read it as if you were reading to a little kid like I did. 🙂
Hello all, something I have mentioned before is that I am a HUGE exercise science nerd. So, I am super excited to talk more about something that came up in class briefly that has been a big focus in some of my other classes. You may have guessed it by the title which is currently the most common term for this condition: The female athlete triad.
As you can tell by the name and see in the graphic three components make up this medical condition, but the thing is a person doesn’t have to display all three to be affected. Prevention or early diagnosis is key because some of the consequences are irreversable once the damage has been done.
So what is it?
Basically it all starts with poor nutrition or energy deficiency. Physically active people burn more calories so they need to have more intake to keep up with their metabolic expenditure needs. This isn’t just athletes either, anyone who is active could develop improper food habits and fall into this condition. An eating disorder could also play a factor here, but it isn’t always a part of the condition. Sports which are highly aesthetic based (think ice skating, dance, gymnastics) can be especially bad about having demanding training programs, but also having strict diets or nutrient restrictions to maintain a certain look. Long distance runners can also burn so many calories that it is impossible for them to intake what they need to replace what they’ve used. This lack of proper nutrition and therfore energy drains the impacted person and kick starts the condition.
If a woman is not feeding herself enough to maintain her bodies high energy expenditure rate then the body recognizes that pregnancy is not a viable option at the time. It basically understands that it can’t sustain itself and so taking on the challenge of sustaining a rapidly developing and nutrient needy fetus isn’t possible. This is why the menstrual dysfunction of the condition begins. Infrequent or absences of periods can occur and aenorrhea (which we learned in class too!) can set in. Obviously this creates issues for adults trying to have children. However, young athletes who havn’t started puberty yet can be severely delayed in development if effected by this condition. Hormones can be throw all off and one which is particullary important and impacts the third component of the triad is estrogen.
Low estrogen levels negitevly impact bone density. This is where most of the long term impact concern for this condition stems from. Young growing athletes are of particular concern again because failure to obtain optimal bone density in youth puts them at a much higher risk of issues later on in life. Osteopenia and osteoperosis can occur as a result of this condition and these are mostly irreversible. I’ve included some pictures below of what osteoporosis looks like and at different stages.
Trust me, we don’t need the increased risk of broken bones! Humans are clumsy enough already, especially as we get older. We don’t need the increased risk of breaking our hip when we fall!
Now, in the very begining I mentioned that the female athlete triad is the most common name for this condition. New research has found some interesting stuff that calls for the condition to be renamed because parallels have been found IN MEN! I can’t remember the new term that has been suggested, but since it is relately new in the research world some are still fighting the changes/saying it is an entirely different concept (for the obvious reasons that it effects men a little differently). I was lucky enough to attend a presentation at our school on some of this male research. It was conducted on cross country runners accumulating large mileage numbers and was looking at how this effected testosterone levels and the implications of lowered levels. It’s some very cool stuff!
Anyway, thanks for sticking around for the long nerd post! I hope you enjoyed/learned something.
It feels like girls have more stuff we’re expected to carry but smaller pockets. It’s like they want us to buy purses or something.
“Do you ever worry that you’ve had to sacrifice your femininity to succeed?”
I don’t think I would have normally found this cartoon funny, but now I love it. I immeadetly connected it to how we value masculinity and it’s more okay for girls to be tom boys than boys to be sissys.
I know I’m young, but as awful as this sounds I hate children and I don’t want any. Anytime this comes up people ALWAYS say, “you’ll change your mind/you’d be a great mom/you’ll regret it if you don’t.” It bothers me that it’s expected of me to have children, when men can not want or have children and they’re never questioned like women are. I know females typically come to mind in areas of family and child care, but why do only women have to feel guilty about not having children later in life? I’d much rather not have the expense of them my whole life and enjoy it for myself, even if that’s selfish in certain eyes.
I’ve never been a close conformer with typical feminine gender stereotypes really. I have never liked playing with dolls and don’t even remember owning any. My prefered toys were mostly stuffed or figure animals. I have always been a daddy’s girl and we got into softball together when I was five. I’ve considered myself a tom boy since I got started in sports and while I think I am more neutral now I still fall to that side more often. I think my upbringing and perspective has made me resent feminine gender expectations more.
Hurricane Dorian threatened our small central Florida campus, forcing the school to take precautions and close for the week. Thankfully we were spared from any extreme weather, but this time off got me thinking. If a hurricane can impact my Human Sexuality class, I wondered how natural disasters in general can impact human sexuality issues.
We haven’t gotten into sex trafficking yet in class, but the article basically discusses that sex traffickers take advantage of vulnerable individuals and that natural disasters create opportunities to do so. This opened my eyes to issues people may face on top of being in the midst of disaster and destruction.
I have heard of sexual abuse, rape and sex trafficking occurring in homeless shelters so it surprised me that I didn’t make an immediate connection to storm shelters as well. Being displaced suddenly is very distressing so I could see how a person could fall into a sex trafficking scheme more easily during the trying times. It can be difficult to stay in contact with others during natural disasters so someone could be sold into the sex trade and moved before their loved one even got to check if they were okay. One of the points that the article made that is particularly scary to me is how children who are separated from their families during the natural disaster could easily be misguided or taken by a sex trafficker. So from the family’s perspective, their child goes missing during a catastrophe and is never heard from again. I know I would assume the worst in this case, but I don’t know if I would ever consider that the child was abducted and now in that kind of situation. To me that is arguably worse than death, especially if the sex trafficker is never caught and the abuse continues.
I’m glad the article pointed out that anyone who goes out to help with disaster relief could also help stop the sex trafficking of the people who faced the natural disaster. Just by being aware of the issue, looking for and acknowledging signs of sexual abuse and being willing to help someone could stop the exploitation of someone in an already unfortunate situation.
Here’s a graphic I found with some more basic info I wanted to share:
The Kinsey movie was a really interesting and fun way to be introduced to the world of research in sexuality. It would be a lie to say I am not very tempted to finish the movie on my own time. The hurricane is totally messing with me, trying to throw a whole week off before the rest of the movie.
Anyway, before this class I had never heard anything about any sex research or wondered about it either. I got curious about the types of questions researchers have and what research is already out there. So with the Kinsey movie in mind, I googled his name and started down the rabbit hole of the internet.
I came across a few websites with articles written about correlational research between funny things like emoji use and sexual activity, which made me almost laugh at the kind of things that can impact human behavior. I moved on past these things pretty quickly though since they seemed purely correlation based and I didn’t have easy access to the real study. Then I came across an abstract I found interesting: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jsm.12111
The authors were looking into how sexual activity impacted the already supressed state of the immune system in depressed individuals. They conducted (suprise!) a survey for their demographics, depression levels and sexual activity (no, seriously you can’t escape the awkward sex surveys if you participate in sex research). Saliva samples were taken for immunoglobulin, which fights against pathogens at mucous membranes and they found some interesting stuff. Women with high levels of partnered sexual activity and depression scores had lowered immunity, but not women with low depression scores. Men with higher levels of partnered sexual activity and depression scores had increased immunity, but not men with low depression scores. I just found it interesting that in one gender depression with lots of partnered sexual activity resulted in decreased ability to fight disease, while the other may have gained resilliance due to it.
If I was asked this question before class this week I probably would have just answered that sexuality is a persons sexual orientation and decisions. I would have agreed that several components make up sexuality, but I would not have been able to clearly break down the concept.
I think a big reason why sexuality is difficult to define is because there is a difference in the attitidues during formal and informal education on the topic. My formal education on sexuality was kept on the down low. Boys and girls were seperated from each other, the lessons were stiff and we were told not to discuss anything outside of class. The teachers awkwardly covered the information the school deemed acceptable to share with us and young, immature students had to be uncomfortably serious during the class. I am an awkward human being already so for all of our comforts sake my parents and I never sat down and talked either. Even if they would have tried, I am sure I would have shut it down quickly. In stark contrast, informally people LOVE to talk about sexuality and its many topics. Many of us learned more from our friends or the internet and I am glad that class revealed I was not the only one with this type of experience. I am perfectly comfortable talking informally with others on a variety of things.
The discrepancy makes it hard to talk in a formal setting, even now as an adult. I have learned things informally that I am not sure if they are true or normal so out of embarrassment formally I would not want to share. I think we all would have better benefitted from a talk with the clearness of a formal education and the openness of an informal one.
Hi! This is Alex and this blog was created for my Human Sexuality class.
About me:
Straight
Basic white girl
Senior
Exercise Science nerd
Jock
I think I’m hilarious too, but have been told I’m not (at all) and that’s cool too
Shout out to KK and Sammy since I live with them and they have to put up with me. They were the two people I invited to follow my blog so they have to suffer through even more of me. 🙂
That’s it
Boring, I know
I’m super excited for this class, but not for this blog. Probably not for the reasons you think though! I’m a perfectionist (which I could have added to my list but it’s too late now, oh well) and I know I’ll never have this blog set up exactly the way I want it to be. That’s going to bug me the whole semester, so bear with me.
Human Sexuality Blog 