By William Saletan
2007 has been a great year for sex. OK, every year is a great year for sex. But this year is especially interesting, with reports of seasonal, vegansexuals, man boobs, female promiscuity, double penises, horny old folks, cosmetic vagina surgery, publicly funded sex-change surgery, and the decline of marriage and co-sleeping. Among this year's hundreds of Human Nature stories, five trends and discoveries stand out.
Parthenogenesis. The top sex story of 2007 is … no sex. Specifically, making babies without sperm. That stuff you were told about the birds and the bees? Sorry. The truth is that males aren't necessary. In May, scientists verified a "virgin birth" in sharks. This phenomenon had previously been found in some amphibians, birds, and reptiles, but a new genetic analysis confirmed it in a hammerhead shark. The baby shark was formed by fusion of an egg with an egg byproduct from the same mother, so its DNA was a double helping of half the mom's DNA. Scientists concluded that this might explain some mysterious births to other captive sharks.
A month later, another shark fetus developed in a tank with no apparent father. No male of the shark's species was in the tank. The fetus was found because its mother died; otherwise, it would have been quickly eaten and never discovered. The implication is that births to sharks with no apparent fathers may happen more often than we realize, because when there's no male around, we don't look for offspring.
The human mind is gradually conquering the human body. Case in point: In May, the FDA approved a birth-control pill that eliminates menstruation. Unlike other birth-control pills, it simply skipped the traditional week off for bleeding. The "curse" used to be defined by its inevitability. Now that's gone.
Not everyone is thrilled about this conquest, as the debate over the new pill made clear.
The pill's manufacturer says:
1) Periods can be painful.
2) They ruin your mood.
3) They cost you work time and hurt your job performance.
4) They disrupt your sex life.
5) They disrupt your exercise routine.
6) There's no evidence that they're necessary to your health.
7) Your "periods" on the pill are fake anyway.
But critics argue:
1) Periods are womanly.
2) They're not an illness.
3) Stop treating your body as a nuisance.
4) Don't mess with Mother Nature.
5) There's no long-term evidence that abolishing periods is safe.
6) If you don't have them, how can you be sure you're not pregnant?
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