Study: Sex with 20+ Women Protects Against Prostate Cancer

LOS ANGELES—A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Montreal indicates that men who have sex with 20 or more women are at less risk of getting prostate cancer. That is not a typo. According to The Guardian, the researchers, who followed more than 3,000 men over a four-year period, found that "those who had slept with more than 20 women were nearly a third less likely to get the disease—while virgins were almost twice as likely to get it." Oddly, the findings were not the same for gay men, who were at double the risk for prostate cancer after reaching 20 male partners, according to the study. But as intriguing as it sounds, the study could also be complete bunk, and dangerous bunk at that, implying that promiscuity might now become a health imperative for many. Indeed, the very explanation given by the study authors for the positive prostate data—more frequent ejaculations rather than more sex partners per se—is challenged by other medical professionals. Dr Mieke Van Hemelrijck, lecturer in cancer epidemiology at King’s College London, thought the ejaculation explanation was weak, arguing that the data results could just as easily be explained as the result of people with a lot of sex partners who also take really good care of themselves. That, she implied, makes more sense than a vague and uncorroborated notion that sleeping with a lot of different people is inherently healthy. (If only!) She also questioned the methodology of the study, telling the paper, “Sexual activity was assessed with an interview, so we can’t be sure that men with prostate cancer didn’t reply in a different way to men without prostate cancer.” Owen Sharp, chief executive of Prostate Cancer UK, added of the methodology, “If I’m being generous, I think the research is very limited and the headlines are borderline dangerous." More definitively, epidemiologist Van Hemelrijck noted of prostate cancer, “The only clearly established risk factors are age, family history and ethnicity." But, she added, another possible explanation for the good prostate news is that men with active sex lives—whether with multiple partners or long-term ones—likely make more frequent trips to the doctor, increasing the odds that a problem will be detected early. If that is the case, added The Guardian, it's actually good news for "believers in family values: it probably isn’t, after all, that you’re less likely to get cancer if you sleep around. It’s that you’re more likely to nip it in the bud if you don’t." Though we are somewhat at a loss to understand why the other possible good news would not be accepted as such by family values types, unless the assumption is that they would actually prefer that promiscuous people get cancer. If that is the case, well, fuck them.