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A startling sexual side-effect to yawning – and other past stories

Trawling through copies of èƵ from the 1990s, we find that some stories about sex are covered a little more luridly than we would now

woman yawning

THERE are few better ways to get a measure of changing social attitudes than to look at how stories about sex are reported. At èƵ we have never shied away from covering such topics, but it is hard to imagine that today we would cover them in the same way we sometimes did in the 90s.

In 1995, our Feedback column – a repository for curious and amusing studies – covered news of a startling side effect of the antidepressant clomipramine A paper in The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry reported that four people taking the drug had orgasms every time they yawned. One woman took the drug for three months to treat her depression, but asked if she could be allowed to continue using it after her symptoms had stopped since she enjoyed the side effect. We then went on to describe another patient, a male, who also asked to continue taking the drug after his symptoms had cleared. I can’t imagine today that we would go into the same detail about how he tackled the logistical problem this threw up. Our closing remark is still pertinent, however: would people taking the drug seek out the most boring person they could find at parties?

In 1993, we reported (again in Feedback) news of particular interest to those who had had a heart attack. A specialist insisted the risk of another heart attack during sex was less than that when simply getting out of bed in the morning. Since we didn’t give any more detail, it is clear the real reason we mention the study is because it is about sex.

Thankfully there are some things we would still report in the same way today. In 1994, we told the story of Marge Alvarez’s experience in a wildlife park near Mexico City when an alligator tried to have sex with her alligator boots. Wardens deployed the single tranquilliser dart they kept for emergencies, but missed. In the end, they had to use a fire hose. “I’ve seen alligators do strange things, but this beats all,” said the warden.

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Topics: Medical drugs / Sex