Viral Load
Should men be scared of hantavirus in their balls?
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As one of the more prominent online health gurus—Tucker Carlson called me the “spiritual leader of the broscientists” in his documentary The End of Men—I get asked a lot about supplements and techniques to improve masculine vitality, usually meaning testosterone levels. Should I take zinc and vitamin D? Ashwagandha? What do you think of red-light panels? I should retain my semen too, right?
“Retaining your semen” might sound like a funny thing to do, but it’s actually becoming a pretty common practice, especially in the “redpill” community and on the more youthful end of the right-wing spectrum. “No Nut November”—a month of zero masturbation—and a broader vow of “nofap” are presented as ways for men to reclaim their self-control and their health, by breaking with harmful dependency on pornography and sublimating their sexual desire into an outlet that’s more productive than self-abuse.
There’s a long tradition of male sexual abstinence for spiritual, intellectual and physical purposes. Everybody from great religious leaders and philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche, to nineteenth-century race scientists and sportsmen—boxers, football players, athletes—has sworn by the benefits of a man retaining his semen. Some even dignify or mystify it with names like “manly essence” or “vril,” and describe the heedless loss of semen as a form of self-enervation or deflation, like running down a battery or letting all the air out of a tire.
Science-wise, there isn’t actually a great deal of research into the benefits of abstaining from ejaculation as a man. There’s at least one study I know of that shows a significant testosterone boost from abstinence over a period of about a week, before returning to baseline levels. This suggests, at the very least, that ejaculating once every week or so may be optimal for male hormonal health.
But like I say, there isn’t a great deal of science to draw firm conclusions from.
My general point, in the absence of definitive scientific evidence is a more basic behavioral one. If you can’t stop touching your penis, you’ve got a problem—just like if you can’t stop drinking or compulsively doing anything else, for that matter. We live in a world of instant gratification, and all signs in our culture point in that direction— consume, consume, consume—so you’re not going to be dissuaded from spending all your time browsing the internet with your left hand unless you decide yourself that something’s wrong. Much larger exercises in self-control—building a great physique, creating the life you really want—can then follow from a simple willed act of refusal.
Or that’s the theory, anyway.
We had some news this week that should, on the face of it, concern any young man currently mulling over what to do with the contents of his balls.
According to a Swiss study from 2023, the hantavirus can remain present in a man’s semen for up to six years and could also be sexually transmitted.
The study looks at a 55-year-old man who went to South America and caught the virus. That’s where the unfortunate passengers of the MV Hondius cruise ship also appear to have picked it up—the so-called Andes strain, which can, unlike other strains, pass from human to human.
Although the virus disappeared from the man’s blood, urine and respiratory tract, genetic material remained present in the man’s semen for 71 months. That’s one month shy of six whole-ass years.
In short, it looks like the testes could act as a long-term reservoir for hantavirus and, just as importantly, that it could be transmitted sexually.
This phenomenon has been documented before, perhaps most notably for the Ebola and Zika viruses. The World Health Organization has linked outbreaks of Ebola to sexual intercourse, and male cases are told to have their semen tested every three months until they return two consecutive negative tests.
So what does this mean? Should every man zip up his sack tight—or empty its contents furiously into the nearest sink?
Actually, calm down: The study doesn’t really mean anything. First of all, there have barely been a dozen cases of hantavirus linked to the Hondius cruise from Hell, so there’s a vanishingly thin chance, fellas, you’re incubating the virus in your two veg as you read this.
Reporting on the study has also been disingenuous to say the least. Some media outlets—Britain’s Daily Telegraph among them—chose to report the virus had been found in sperm. Sperm and semen are not the same thing. Sperm are the swimmers; semen is the substance they swim in.
Remedial biology lesson over.
