Doctor (but not of love) resigns after saying unprotected sex makes women happier

Unprotected sex makes women happier, according to the Dr. Lazar Greenfield, the once-upon-a-time incoming president of the American College of Surgeons.

Greenfield, 78,  ”shocked the medical community” by making the suggestion that  ”[semen is] a better gift … than chocolates” in a Valentine’s Day editorial.

This woman is either very happy or has recently fallen out of an airplane.

Less shockingly, he has resigned his position as editor in chief of Surgery News and won’t be getting that prestigious new gig after all.

The entire online issue of the publication in which the article appeared — the official newspaper of the American College of Surgeons — was also withdrawn.

Here’s the offending text:

It’s been known since the 1990s that heterosexual women living together synchronize their menstrual cycles because of pheromones, but when a study of lesbians showed that they do not synchronize, the researchers suspected that semen played a role. In fact, they found ingredients in semen that include mood enhancers like estrone, cortisol, prolactin, oxytocin, and serotonin; a sleep enhancer, melatonin; and of course, sperm, which makes up only 1%-5%. Delivering these compounds into the richly vascularized vagina also turns out to have major salutary effects for the recipient. Female college students having unprotected sex were significantly less depressed than were those whose partners used condoms. Their better moods were not just a feature of promiscuity, because women using condoms were just as depressed as those practicing total abstinence. The benefits of semen contact also were seen in fewer suicide attempts and better performance on cognition tests.

So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there’s a better gift for that day than chocolates.

Greenfield is certainly smart, he wrote a famous textbook on surgery and invented the Greenfield Filter, which prevents blood clots from traveling into the lungs and other places during surgery, but he’s not wise. After the editorial, instead of simply apologizing, he seemed to attack the women who were offended by his editorial in a well-read e-mail.

As for that study, many think it’s flawed, but I can’t find any refutation of the controversial conclusion online.

Still, it would be unwise to forget the chocolates, or the condoms, which the CDC seems to think are quite useful.