Carbonated contraception not the real thing, baby
.. ArtisHENDERSON sandydays@floridaweekly.com
Cue the band. The 2008 "Ig Nobel" winners have been announced. The yearly awards, which honor real research but whose recipients are rarely Nobel material, go to off-thewall studies that deliver intriguing-ifirrelevant knowledge.
Like this year's prize in biology, awarded to a French team of scientists who proved that dog fleas jump higher than cat fleas.
Or physics prize winner Dorian Raymer's mathematical study on why string inevitably ties itself in knots.
But the true standout in this year's competition is the chemistry prize,
given to the scientists behind a New
England Journal of Medicine study that demonstrated Coca-Cola's sperm-killing capabilities.
Deborah Anderson, author of the cola research project, says the study was no joke. She initiated the scientific investigation after hearing reports that women were douching with Coca-Cola as a form of contraceptive. Although she did find that soda kills sperm (they soak up the sugar and explode), the study concluded that sperm swim too fast for cola to work as a pregnancy preventative.
I know the Ig Nobels are tonguein cheek, but I worry what this study says about the lengths women must go to avoid getting knocked up. Douching with Coke is admittedly over-thetop, but even the doctor-sanctioned options can be terrifying. Take IUD', a T-shaped plastic or copper device inserted (without painkillers) into the uterus. Or the legions of hormonebased pills, with their nausea and mood swings. That's without going into barrier options like foam (comes in an aerosol can) or sponges (not the dishwashing kind).
What all this means for our dating relationships is that getting pregnant is a serious no-no. Even in this enlightened day and age, some consider a baby born out of wedlock best avoided at all costs (even if it means putting cola in your private parts). Look at the recent rash of Hollywood shotgun weddings, like Ashlee Simpson's quickie marriage to Pete Wentz (and the baby bump that followed soon after). Even in ultraliberal Tinseltown, an illegitimate child still carries stigma.
So, why do we have a problem when love, marriage and the baby carriage gets thrown out of whack? I have the sense that, if pregnancy is the ultimate indicator of sex, then pregnancy out of wedlock is the scarlet letter identifier of sex before marriage. And our Puritanical roots scream in protest.
But who are we kidding?
Research shows that 95 percent of Americans engage in premarital sex, and according to a 2006 study released by the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, this number has held steady since the 1950s.
Maybe we should take a cue from Scandinavia, where more babies are born out of wedlock than to married couples. Men and women there often choose to cohabitate and have children, forgoing the traditional marriage route. They must be doing something right: In the U.N.'s 2007- 08 quality-of-life index, Norway ranked second among the world's nations, Sweden sixth and Finland 11th. The United States came in at number 12.
Perhaps our culture could do with less
finger-wagging at unwed mothers. The Nords have shown us that out-of-wedlock parenting doesn't mean failure, just like marriage doesn't guarantee success. But there is one thing we can all agree on: Cola contraception has got to go.
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