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Miss Poubelle has been enjoying the fascinating book A Mind of its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis, by David M. Friedman. In this book, Friedman explores different ways that Western society has viewed the penis and its products over the centuries. Although the primary focus of the book is the penis, along the way Friedman also makes the provocative point that attitudes towards semen have varied wildly over time.

We might call the two basic attitudes spermophobia and spermophilia. In the spermophobic view, semen is a nasty, vile substance produced by the body-- on a par with shit, snot, and vomit. St. Augustine's view of semen prevailed in the early and medieval church, according to which semen was the substance that actually transmitted original sin from one generation to the other. In this way, it was unparalleled in its potential for evil.

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The spermophobic view prevailed for a thousand years in the West, and still has some prevalence today. But beginning in the 17th century, a different view, which we might label spermophilia, emerged. In Friedman's view, the crucial turning point was the development of microscopes that allowed people to actually see sperm cells racing about in the semen. The microscopist Leeuwenhoek reported the discovery of spermatozoa in 1677, and for a time many in the scientific community believed that the sperm cells contained an entire tiny human being, which only needed to grow in an appropriate environment to become a full-grown person.

If semen actually contained little people, it seemed far less appropriate to regard it on a par with snot or vomit. Far from being contemptible and vile, semen came to be viewed by many as the stuff of life and the essence of a man's energy. The most important early proponent of this idea was Samuel-Auguste Tissot in a 1758 treatise on onanism, which suggested that loss of semen (via masturbation or wet dreams) was one of the leading causes of every ailment known to man-- mental retardation, weak lungs, poor digestion, degeneration of the nervous system, blindness, and even death. Tissot claimed that the loss of one ounce of semen was equivalent to the loss of forty ounces of blood.

The anti-masturbation message that Tissot promoted lasted well into the twentieth century, and there may still be some benighted corners of the world that teach boys that masturbation will make them go blind. (And no doubt there are still boys who ask, "Can I just do it till I need glasses?")

When we look at today's attitudes towards semen, do we see more spermophobia, spermophilia, or are we developing a more realistic and less hysterical attitude to this commonest of substances? Much HIV-prevention language seems to encourage a spermophobic attitude, wherein sex ought to take place with no contact with sperm-- the virus has replaced original sin as the polluting element.

On the other hand, spermophilic attitudes can also take a nasty turn, as when gay men eroticize come in ways that are profoundly unsafe. On any of the barebacking websites you can find men who say that they are HIV-, but are looking for "poz loads." Many such men may merely be engaging in fantasies, but the existence of a small population of "bug-catchers" can't be denied. For these men, semen takes on many of the vital powers promoted by spermophilics like Tissot.

The middle ground is hard to find, and that's one of the difficulties of finding effective ways to make safe sex work. Most gay men can't lead a sex life that is completely contained in latex, because semen is part of the erotic experience of sex-- a reality unfortunately overlooked by too many American safe sex educators who advocate rigidly spermophobic safe sex practices that the majority of gay men have great difficulty following. Every time Miss Poubelle reads an HIV educator dogmatically preaching the strictest forms of semen avoidance, she hears a faint echo of St. Augustine and original sin....