How Women Affect Male Fertility

It’s widely known that when a group of women live in close quarters, their monthly cycles start to tune in to one another’s and they start to menstruate at the same time.  First discovered my Martha McClintock decades ago, this phenomenon is the first example of pheromones—unconscious chemical signals that influence behavior and physiology—among humans. Pheromones are the chemicals that that trigger a natural behavioral response in another member of the same species, through odor cues.

On a related subject, though many men complain about the emotional mishmash of living with woman (especially considering the above!), most men living in a house full of ladies really wouldn’t have it any other way and love the sweetness of living with women. Interestingly, Science Daily recently reported that a study on mice revealed that living with a female can extend the reproductive life of a male by as much as 20 %, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (online January 22 in the Journal Biology of Reproduction).
Apparently, the females’ effect on the environment of the spermatogonial stem cells occurs through the male’s endocrine and nervous systems, but other systems are likely involved. And what does the change amount to? A reduction of fertility six months earlier in “lonely” mice as opposed to those who have female companionship.  These study results actually have significant implications for the maintenance of male fertility in wildlife and livestock and maybe even human populations.  Imagine a program that begins to put males with low fertility in group houses filled with women!  Whether this female influence occurs in other species is not known, but it is known that the female strongly modifies a variety of responses in males in areas of male physiology and psychology.  As different as we are, it turns out that our hormones, even through the air, affect each other!  A truly fascinating finding worthy of exploration, no doubt!