Talk:Spermophagia

Notable?

This point of discussion referred to as "dubious" should not be so labeled. The research was conducted by the University of North Carolina, and was reported by CNN. If the veracity of the article is questioned, then the above sources responsible for this research and the reporting of it need to be contacted. Unless and until they rescind, retract and remove these published findings, there is no justification for flagging this article. I am therefore now removing the flagging. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.117.80.210 (talk) 21:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Can I remove the reference to genesis because many would argue that Onan's main sin was the deception that he carried out not the actual spilling. Not to mention it had nothing to do with fellatio. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.127.164.185 (talk) 19:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I have restored the flagging. Please read the second reference (now the third), and look at the URL. It is clearly a hoax. This information clearly isn't verifiable enough to be used in an encyclopedia, and represents some high school students making up information for a prank.Dtemp (talk) 00:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Unless you are alleging that "New Scientist" magazine is a spurious publication or that SUNY is not a reputable research institution, there is no rational basis for this frivolous claim! The article can be found in the search engines of both entities. Snopes has discussion verifying this info, and you may also Google it for yourself. Flagging deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.117.80.210 (talk) 04:45, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Title

This article needs to be restored to its orignal "seminophagia" title page instead of "semen ingestion," which was arbitrarily initiated by a vandal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rin3guy (talk • contribs) 16:41, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Which is the more commonly used, especially in WP:RS, which is how we usually choose an article's title on WP? [1][2]. I don't think seminophagia is even correct greek or whatever. It would be spermophagia or spermaphagia, which are mentioned in WP:RS, unlike seminophagia. This article would have been a candidate for merging, not sure whether it should remain now. Sticky Parkin 21:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted the name of this article to "seminophagia," not only because it is an accurate clinical term, but also because that is the original title given to it by whomever started this page, and every Wikilink to here on other pages is so labeled!

I changed the image caption which was "a cartoon character consuming a large quantity of semen from a container", as this is not a cartoon character, but a realistic illustration of a woman that was specifically created for Wikipedia. TFrenay (talk) 13:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Illustration

Is the illustration used on this page appropriate? I'm perfectly comfortable with graphic sexual depictions on wikipedia, where they illustrate the article in question. The illustration used here seems to pertain specifically to the practice of gokkun, which is apparently mostly only found in Japanese porn. Whereas the article mostly discusses consumption of "normal quantities" of semen, as in fellatio.

I think there must be an illustration corresponding better to the content of the article. Perhaps File:Wiki-cumshot.png this one, or something along those lines? Moxfyre (ǝɹʎℲxoɯ | contrib) 04:09, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The illustration on this page is unnecessary and excessively vulgar. Why would this need to be illustrated at all - the description is more than adequate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.24.182 (talk) 06:12, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree—that image is utterly out of place here. Even if there's some merit to providing an illustration here, this illustration is utterly divorced from reality. (I cannot help but wonder how long it would take for an individual to produce such a prodigious quantity to fill such a container.) Why not illustrate it with a man drinking out of a shoe? Or a chicken drinking out of a soda bottle? This illustration is both meaningless and vulgar. --WaldoJ (talk) 22:19, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not really sure what Wikipedia etiquette here is, but I'm going to remove the image based on the comments above. 150.101.157.20 (talk) 04:59, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Note to future editors - this discussion refers only to the image "Wiki-gokkun.png".  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 19:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

synthesis

• Dental health: Seminal plasma contains minerals such as zinc and calcium, both of which are known to inhibit tooth decay, both internally and externally.

• Musculoskeletal support: Seminophagia provides the body with testosterone, which is important to maintain muscle and bone strength. While women need a smaller proportion of testosterone than men, it is just as important to female health as it is to male. Testosterone reduces the risk of heart attack, protects against stroke, and can even treat diabetes. Testosterone is particularly important after menopause. When testosterone levels in the blood increase in testosterone-deficient women, bone density usually improves, and women generally report that they feel better.

The above is either not reliably sourced or is synthesis. It is unscientific to assume that the existance of hormones or minerals in semen automatically means it has the same properties as those ingredients, with no study of dose-response or metabolism. They should only be added when scientific sources are given showing the action of semen directly, not guessing from its ingredientsYobMod 18:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Zinc oxide, which is root canal dental paste, contains both zinc and calcium.

www.reference.md/files/D015/mD015034.html -- The amounts of calcium and zinc in semen may be considered subtherapeutic but are still at least marginally beneficial.JGabbard (talk) 19:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The testosterone paragraph is not intended to be a comprehensive statement of therapeutic regimen but simply an indicator of some degree of benefit, be it lesser or greater. Additional facts and research as to precise therapeutic dosages would certainly be welcome to supplement the information. Notwithstanding, room for expansion of an incomplete thought in an article does not render the basic concept inaccurate or worthy of removal. Saying "New York is half way around the world from Hong Kong" is generally true, regardless of whether or not the exact distance is noted. Paragraphs with references are restored, with a call for further discussion and elaboration on this point.JGabbard (talk) 19:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

To keep all the discussion in one place, I'm replying only at Talk:Semen#Dental_health.2C_dubious at sections in that talk page. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:22, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Article name

The question of what this article should be titled was raised on my talk page. An argument has been made that most reliable sources call it spermaphagia or spermophagia. There has been some objection to using one of those names, but I have not seen an argument for the current title based upon reliable sources. Could we perhaps list sources that use each name here? The article should be titled with whatever name the is used by the preponderance of scientific literature. LadyofShalott 19:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

See Title Section above (the section was not previously well defined, I have just done the sectioning)  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:37, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Ron, thanks Lady. Sticky Parkin moved the page to Spermophagia, and that was the correct thing to do, until they were reverted by JGabbard. Parkin's rationale was that reliable sources only spoke of Spermophagia, and that's correct: see the Google books search for spermophagia (a few hits) and Seminophagia (no hits). (No hits for either at Google Scholar.) The plethora of Google hits on the internet at large for Seminophagia is easily explained--the cause is Wikipedia. There are no independent, reliable sources for that term. What we have here is a term invented by someone who pulls up 'sources' about semen left and right and synthesizes them to generate an article out of it. But to stay on topic--the article should be redirected to the only word ever used in reliable sources for what this article could be talking about (which is more relevant to plants (see Google Books search), BTW, than to the intricacies and perceived benefits of cum swallowing). Drmies (talk) 01:13, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

From the search results, it certainly looks like Spermophagia is the term used in literature, and, therefore, the one we should use to title the article. LadyofShalott 03:01, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with that - I tried several searches on Google for Seminophagia, each time adding more parameters to eliminate wiki pages - and even then as soon as I looked at the pages, the same old sentences (lifted from here) appeared - there was nothing unique.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:17, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I am the compiler of the majority of the research and authored 75% of the article, however, I did not initiate the article but simply expanded what had been just a stub. Sticky Parkin had renamed it not sperma- or spermophagia but 'semen ingestion.' I would prefer that it remain seminophagia simply because it is a more comprehensive term than sperma-/spermophagia since semen consists of more than just sperm only.JGabbard (talk) 03:10, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Of course semen is more than just sperm, but if spermophagia is the term used in most reliable sources, that's what we need to use. LadyofShalott 04:18, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Same here. I only see "seminophagia" being used in mirrors of wikipedia. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:01, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Doing so would likely only lead to confusion with the very similar term Spermophaga, which is the genus of an African bird.JGabbard (talk) 17:26, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

That's what disambiguation links at the tops of pages are for: problem solved. It seems that seminophagia is a neologistic bit of original research. LadyofShalott 18:14, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

A hypothetical confusion between "spermophagia" and "spermophaga" is better than an article with a made-up title. Let's move it. Drmies (talk) 04:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

We seem to have a general consensus; I have made the move. LadyofShalott 14:26, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Health Benefits

The section on "anti-depressant" effect is constantly being put back in, and it should be considered vandalism, as they are unverifiable sources/urban legends/false pages. Could we please stop reverting the deletion until proper verifiable sources can be obtained, or any conclusive scientific evidence is presented? Thanks. The quoted sources question the so called "evidence", an incomplete reference is made to a book (no chapter, page, quote... nothing verifiable).

Margaridas (talk) 20:43, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

It needs to be reworded completely to fit what the sources actually say, and the quality of the studies (a Gallup poll is not exactly a high-quality scholar source, and this ref points out that it only showed that it enhaced mood and it showed nothing about depressions, the same as a later study with actual quality). Too tired now to do it myself. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:18, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

A more fundamental problem is that the term 'spermophagia'[ ('seminophagia' does not exist) has yet to be defined. I have my doubts about its very existence, and the more I look at this article, which seems to attempt to give a flavor of health benefits to a sexual matter, the more I am inclined to simply propose deletion and let the community decide. Whatever health benefits there are--some sources seem legit--belong in the Semen article. Margaridas, Enric, any thoughts? Drmies (talk) 15:06, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I reworded it. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:15, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I proposed a merge at Talk:Semen#merge_from_Spermophagia. If someone can produce more RS of cultural semen ingestion, then maybe the article could be kept as an article about cultural traditions, but we should clean up a lot of stuff. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Doh, the whole health benefits section has been nuked at the Semen article while I was rewording it here. We really need to put the two articles together and stop this spreading of the seme information. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:34, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

"Yet to be defined"?? It's a compound word! It should be self explanatory. Semen = sperm and phagia = eating. So semenophagia means sperm eating. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.53.37.222 (talk) 03:43, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

A section redirect would be acceptable, but I continue to advocate separation of the sexual fetish aspect from the clinical and physiological aspects because I feel that is the way most people would prefer to see it. If spermo-/seminophagia is to be merged, then what is to be done with "Gokkun," "cum shot," "facial," and "pearl necklace"?? This could get a little 'messy,' so to speak. The New Guinea material is already quite well covered on the Etoro & Baruya pages, neither of which receives more than just 100-200 hits, unlike seminophagia, which typically has had around 5000 daily, certainly more than enough to merit its own page. Yes Drmies, this is about sexual fetish. But it just so happens that there are effects of semen, and the health benefits of ingesting it do vary from other kinds of sex. In my opinion, the page's title should be restored to its original "seminophagia" title. Every word has to be coined sometime. Spermophagia, while acceptable, is a term of incomplete description because swallowing sperm is impossible without also swallowing semen.

"Every word has to be coined sometime." Sure, but Wikipedia is not the place to create neologisms. (See WP:NEOLOGISM.) Go get some papers published in reliable sources using "seminophagia", then we'll revisit naming an article with that term. LadyofShalott 01:47, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The term "seminophagia" does not strictly fit the neologism criteria, the most significant being, "not well understood, not clearly definable." There is very little room for misunderstanding this term, nor was it coined by me.JGabbard (talk) 02:26, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Erm, you should read under the section "Reliable sources for neologisms". (And, hum, the section "Articles wrongly titled as neologisms" would support more the title "semen ingestion" than any of those two titles, mind you, not to mention that the term is actually in usage in scholar sources with the correct meaning[3]) --Enric Naval (talk) 03:01, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm glad JGabbard stated explicitly that this is about sexual fetish. Now, I, or some other editor, should really go and act on that statement, and cut the article down to one sentence: "Spermophagia is a sexual fetish." That, really, is all there is--the rest is window dressing. JGabbard is muddying the waters themselves by throwing in all that irrelevant (and dubious) stuff about health and minerals. If this is someone's sexual fetish, they'd engage in it even if semen were 100% bad cholesterol. But I'm going to wait and see how the discussion on Talk:Semen plays out, before I go edit on JGabbard's advice--or propose this article for deletion based on the concept, well, not existing.

Finally, stop these distracting mentions, JGabbard of "what to do with 'pearl necklace.'" What do you mean, what to do? That's a different article and a different matter. Also, if you could stop bringing up the number of hits you claim this page gets--it has no bearing on relevance whatsoever. Drmies (talk) 03:53, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

We're getting a little of topic. The point is that wherever the article does go, and whatever does happen to it, we have to be careful with the sources. Additionally, I don't much care for JGabbard's contributions, as he seems intent on putting the paragraphs with dodgy sourcing in simply for his own amusement. Margaridas (talk) 22:56, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Hey Marg, Can you please tell me why you consider NYU "not a serious source"? Perhaps NYU might also like to know these things.JGabbard (talk) 00:14, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Which NYU source are you referring to? Margaridas (talk) 13:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Probably http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/annotate/node/350 --Enric Naval (talk) 17:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

That's more of a blog entry talking about inconclusive research (no proof of correlation vs causation)... Margaridas (talk) 22:57, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

That would be the one.JGabbard (talk) 03:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I see that JGabbard has dediced to re-add all the sources again [4]. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:32, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

My initial reaction to this article is simply this: Cultural practices? Ingestion of semen? Maybe have separate sections detailing the reasons for... What? Spermophagia? What? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.234.192.254 (talk) 20:21, 14 October 2009 (UTC)