SPRING FEVER? TAKE AN ASPIRIN

You can't count on your fancy turning to, uh, love this spring. University of Texas physiologist Michael Smolensky suggests the real season for heightened sexual activity is late summer/early fall. To support his hypothesis, he cited the following evidence at the Tenth World Congress of Fertility and Sterility in Madrid. He said that U.S. birth records show that most babies are conceived in mid-October and incidence of gonorrhea peaks from late August through October. An English study found contraceptive sales highest at midsummer. In October, male testosterone levels measure highest, while sperm counts tend to be 20 percent lower than usual, perhaps an indicator of sexual activity. If from this we can conclude that our biological alarm clocks go off in August, then right now, it's about three a.m. That's enough to make your fancy turn -- and toss.

Illustration by John Dawson

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Reprinted from Playboy, March 1981 Copyright ©1981 Playboy Enterprises, Inc. No part of this article may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means--electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise--without the written permission of the copyright owner.

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