Well here is an opportunity, under the guise of science, to post a bit of porn on The Green Man, specifically an image of a naked woman with a number of naked men with huge erections, and for the highest and noblest of reasons. Namely boosting the failing sperm count of the men of the western world. Sadly however The Green Man happens to be at work at the moment and trawling the net for images of porn as detailed above has become somewhat unfashionable in the comtemporary Australian workplace. Consequently you will just have to cast your mind back to the last time you "accidently" stumbled on images of this nature.

If you are a woman it doesn't matter, you can think of dolphins frolicking or something, it is the men who have to keep these images of porn fixed firmly in their minds. Not that The Green Man has to ask, most of the male readership are probably doing that anyway.

On to the topic: Dr Leigh Simmons of the University of Western Australia in Perth, like all good academics, is focused on the challenging task of combining research and pleasure and what better way to do this than to initiate a study of the effect of pornography on males. Fortunately for Dr Leigh, he has ended up with some interesting results (as well as an exceptionally comprehensive image library of pornography). It seems that men exposed to images of a naked female in the presence of two or more naked males produce much higher quality sperm than those who are exposed to images of naked women only. He hypothesises

males (of many species, including humans) should produce better sperm when faced with a female who has other mates, because this stimulates them to boost their chance of procreation.

The study also found that

men who keep their mobile telephone near to their testes may be harming the quality of their sperm

The Green Man must mix in very conservative circles because he cannot think of one male acquaintence who keeps his mobile phone stuffed in his underpants. It raises some vexing questions,

Is this the real reason for the vibrate mode?

What is the ettiquette of retrieving said phone in mixed company if it rings?

What do you say if it is your companions phone that is ringing? "Excuse me but your crutch is vibrating." perhaps?

Dr Leigh says

further experiments and animal studies should be carried out to investigate the effects of mobile phones on fertility. At least one previous study has shown a possible link between phones and sperm count. But experts have cautioned that confounding factors, such as the fact that phone-users may have more stressful lives

The Green Man humbly suggests that not storing your mobile phone in your underpants might be a good first step at reducing the amount of stress in your life.

Tim Birkhead, who studies sperm competition at the University of Sheffield, UK is not at all happy with his collection of pornography he says

The results now need to be checked with a much larger sample

Good luck Tim!

Inexplicably and in spite of the fact it is Friday afternoon you may be interested in a drier, more academic, coverage of the research you can read it in Nature.