Over on We Hunted the Mammoth, there’s a discussion of this odd post by one of those Men Going Their Own Way about copulins — which are apparently sex pheromones secreted by the vagina. This was the first I ever heard of them, which gave me a moment’s panic. I am a biology professor, and I do teach human physiology, and here was this phenomenon I’d never encountered before? Worrisome. But only for a moment. There are a lot of details I know nothing about, so maybe this was an opportunity to learn something new.
I’ve got a small collection of physiology and neuroscience texts, so I checked there first. Nope, unheard of term, nowhere in any of their indices.
So then I checked pubmed — textbooks don’t have the most cutting edge stuff, so going to the recent literature is one way to track them down. I wasn’t quite skunked — pubmed has heard of the term, and there were a few references to copulins. Four, to be exact. Two were from the 1970s (so no, not recent literature), and there was one paper in the 1980s that talked about aliphatic acids as copulins in rhesus monkeys. OK, but I’d need more evidence that these were actually acting as specific pheromones, rather than just recognizable scents. Acetic acid is an aliphatic acid, and one that’s mentioned as a candidate, and I’m sorry, but that would imply that vinegar is a sex stimulant to monkeys. Maybe. It’s going to take more evidence than one primate paper that has apparently stimulated no further research in 30 years to persuade me that it’s significant.
There is one article from 1997, in an obscure German journal, Gynäkologische-Geburtshilfliche Rundschau, a gynecological/obstetrical journal to which I don’t have access. There was a Discovery Channel documentary on it (credibility waning) which is available on YouTube (credibility completely gone).
Oh, jeez, that was awful. Didn’t believe a bit of it.
To the internet! Google only gives me a couple of MGTOW-like forums, a guy who has the copulins.freeservers domain and babbles in a fact-free way about how they work, with zero citations, and finally, the real kicker, an article on Oprah, which discusses the opinions of one of the authors of that Gynäkologische-Geburtshilfliche journal.
There are also lots of sites that will sell you “purified copulins” to drive men wild. They don’t seem very credible to me, but hey, if you’ve got $40 burning a hole in your pocket and want to throw it away on something that smells faintly like cucumber, go at it.
But wait! There’s more! Check out the detailed description of how a woman can control a man’s mind by assuming a specific sexual pose and remaining stationary, marinating his penis in her magical juices which will allow her to…
1) Change, remove, or insert memories
2) Tell the male what he sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes
3) Insert subconscious thoughts that will surface as male “ideas” or behavior later
4) Plant trigger words or actions that can cause thoughts, actions, or sensations in the male at later dates (days, weeks, even months)
In case you want to try it, here’s the procedure:
Through the process of coupling a female and male will lay relatively still without having sex with the penis inside of the vagina. The process may take up to 15 minutes and works faster and more efficiently when the female is on top of the male. During this period the vagina injects up to 1/2 cup (100 ml) of the copulin fluid into the urethral opening at the tip of the penis, which is chemically attracted to semen, and will follow the semen down the shaft directly into the testicles. After 15 minutes of coupling the copulins will have entered the blood stream and traveled from his testicles up into the hypothalamus (a section of the brain that controls hormones) causing the male to become completely influenced by the needs and suggestions of the female.
Guess what? That’s total bullshit. Yeah, try pouring half a cup of liquid onto a penis and getting it to travel all the way to the testicles and then enter the bloodstream. It’s hydraulically impossible. I’m also trying to picture a vagina “injecting” anything. I suspect the author has never had sex with a woman before.
In fact, the whole notion is ridiculous unscientific gobbledygook. MRAs — excuse me, MGTOWs — have to be even dumber than I thought to fall for this nonsense.
This is so scientifically inaccurate, Ben Carson could have come up with it.
I don’t know. I think I read a documentary about this once.
And 3 saliva-coated peanuts hit my laptop screen – Thanks, PZ!
Probably some paranoid MRA thought up the term “The Manginachurian Candidate”, and worked their way backwards from there to this.
The sequel will no doubt involve targeted assassinations using erototoxins.
I don’t smell copulins (what ever they are), but a more than a trace of “paranoiains” is definitely present….
Sounds like a rejected X-Files Monster-of-the-week episode. But they went with the fat-sucking vampire because that’s more plausible.
Is this what General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove was on about?
It sounds like whoever wrote this grossly misunderstood sperm chemotaxis and anatomy and then somehow got even worse from there.
A vagina “injecting” half a cup of anything into anything. Jesus.
If this fevered paranoia was in any way a thing in the real world, wouldn’t the sinister forces of feminism have loaded a fleet of cropdusters with copulins and taken over the world with an army of malleable man-slaves by now?
Damn you. Here I was, ready to go with “Manchurian Glandidate.”
Only Kegel-squeezing the penis can affect memory, simulate perceptions and/or implant suggestions, buffybot. Crop dusters don’t work.
As for why we haven’t taken over the world anyway?
Two things: First, we have. Haven’t you noticed that the Trilateral Commission’s high council members are all female?
Second, there is the matter of this:
That stereotypical masculinity that dispenses with women’s orgasms and insists anything other than the missionary position is evil? That wasn’t sexism: that was the defensive folk-wisdom of men who had been resisting female copulin-power for millennia!
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BTW: Why does this particular evil-female-mates-to-control-and-kill scheme make me think of Xander?
That is all quite absurd, true, but something thereabouts smells primally appealing to some humans. I could get more specific about my experience, but I’m sure most people would not appreciate that. Hm, I say. But to magic mind control pheromones? About as believable as Ada Initiative sirens luring brave man-heroes of science to prisony doom. Are these people all fucked up on coke? How do you make yourself believe this kind of shit?
I think only a few would object, but I’m sure that the vast majority of people would find greater specifics unnecessary, so I concur with your decision to hold back a bit.
Nonetheless, I find it just a bit odd to bring it up at all. Bringing up the scent of vaginal fluids when we’re mocking MRA mind-control theories doesn’t seem bad per se, but it does seem about as relevant as bringing up brownian motion and its relationship to electromagnetic forces on a thread mocking Sedona-based hippies for asserting that magnetic vibrations in the hills around the city can cure cancer, defuse nuclear weapons, and cause the spontaneous combination of disparate organics into a perfect eggplant curry.
… without having sex with the penis inside of the vagina.
Without commissioning a poll, I strongly suspect a large majority of both men and women, feminists and non-, will include, many even equate, “penis inside vagina” with “sex”.
So, the female lies on top of the totally unaware male, who has his penis in her scheming vagina without having “sex” for 15 minutes. And the male doesn’t ever wonder, “Hey, what’s going on–or not going on–here?”
Those copulins are so powerful, they work even before the cunning vagina starts injecting them into the penis!!
So, I’ve had to catheter myself on several—make that many—occasions and never once went anywhere other than directly into the bladder.
How this magic vagina mind control juice manages to force its way down the long way into the testes is hydrologically
impossibleextremely unlikely also. In reality, the VMCJ is going to hit the trigone, causing the brain to open the bladder’s floodgates.For shits’n’giggles, try peeing into a measuring cup, topping it off at 1/2 cup. Now imagine instead of going out, that much VMCJ is going in. And you won’t notice.
For what it’s worth, Wikipedia has a short section in the Pheromone article titled “Vaginal aliphatic acids” which it describes as “volatile fatty acids as a kind of carboxylic acid.” It says these were discovered in rhesus monkeys that produce six of them in vaginal fluids, and that the combination of all six is called “copulins.” It’s somewhat confusing about their presence in humans. It cites one article from 1975 three times, and one from 2003 (Warren S. T. Hays, “Human pheromones: have they been demonstrated?”, Behavioral Ecological Sociobiology). Perhaps that journal is actually called Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.
Holy Heckfire, Usernames!, #16!!!!
Did you just table-flip misogyny in your username extension?
YOU SO ROCK!
The ad at the top o the page wants me to buy their drug for treating prostate cancer, but they dutifully warn me that if I’m thinking about getting pregnant I shouldn’t take it.
As Red Buttons says, strange things are happening.
I do not think they are on coke or even crack, sounds more like someone tweaking on crank or someone in need of some haldol
uncle frogy
I’d be more concerned about Crapulins. Those hormones secreted my my anus that affect my brain and make me think that everything that I shit is the most amazing idea since the last time and I’m glad I have my mobile so I can get it on the internet before I can pull up my pants.
Bastionofsass@15: The poor victim is thinking, “Why do they always want to cuddle afterwards?”
Usernames, etc@16: The male victim doesn’t notice in his post-copulatory daze, but his body does; that’s why we often need to pee afterwards.
See, it all makes perfect sense. [/sarcasm]
No mention of how women invented that special weft in bed sheets that mean even in the missionary position you will slide up the bed so the man bashes his brains out on the headboard?
buffybot:
I’m sure that someone somewhere is already claiming that this is what “chemtrails” are really about.
Obviously normal physiological processes are not sufficient to draw in this powerful mind control sex drug. These devious women must be harnessing gravity magnets to induce the flow, and them employ quantum to activate the drug in the man’s brain. Once activated, control through mental hypnosis is easy.
All very scientific, right?
So now it’s Vagina
DentataInjecta? Amazing how I can reach brand new heights of FemEvil™ without even trying.Someone has allowed their imagination to run so far away it has gone into orbit around an alternative universe. This required inventing lots of new physics, side-effects of which include allowing a vagina to inject something, peas having taste, and stationary cheese trees.
Actually, of course, what really happens is the cooties zip in, grab a tentacle full, and then go and contaminate the partner. To someone whose imagination is orbiting another universe, that’s the same as “injecting”.
this line
“Apparently they smell like butter which is the smell I notice when I’m in any place where I notice girls walking around in their mid to late teenage years.”
is really gross and reeeeeally set off my creeper radar
@M31 #28:
Quite. We can only hope he spends most of his time at home, masturbating with the help of a couple of pieces of toast.
What have you got against toast?
“What have you got against toast?”
His penis, apparently.
@M31 #28: Definitely creepy, also utterly bizarre, as I’m quite sure my high school didn’t constantly smell of butter, and there were “girls walking around in their mid to late teenage years” all over that place.
I first read the title as “Coprolites”, but sadly the only fossils this blog post discusses are inside MRA’s heads.
This is a new kind of crazy. Like seriously unless your date is Morrigan Aensland I don’t think you’ll need to worry about mind-controlling fluids (and if it is, very soon you won’t be able to worry about anything ever again…).
And WHY is he hanging out in places with teenage girls all the time? Ick, ick, ick.
I think these mesmerised MRAs are trying to find a “sciency” explanation for a little thing called “love”. Surprises: women seem to get injected with it quite as often as men.
The “women are oppressing me!”, true MRA, side of the anti-feminist community manages to have a small subset of idiots who claim that women are succubi with mind-affecting vaginal secretions.
The “women are fucktoys”, PUA side of the anti-feminist community, who mock the former as sexless losers, beta males, cucks, etc., has some idiot chuckleheads claiming that semen is the best thing ever because it is mind-affecting and you totally shouldn’t use condoms because you want women to be addicted to your sperm.
Or at least one idiot MRA thinks that: Gamergate super lawyer Mike Cernovich
https://storify.com/SJWIlluminati/juicebro-is-fucking-nuts
(I believe this is the same Mike Cernovich that claimed that straight men won’t get AIDS, so there’s that)
If you tried to “inject” half a cup of anything into my penis, especially if it were to follow my seminal tract, I would be hollering in pain. The typical ejaculate volume is a teaspoon or so, and a lot of that is prostatic fluid. The epididymis is already holding sperm and cannot accommodate a half cup of fluid, even if it’s divided into 2 ounces for each one. “Blue balls” are a real thing that happens when arousal does not result in release: Fluids are prepared for ejaculation but if they aren’t released, it has to go somewhere.
OW!