“Whenever there was a problem, they always blamed the female, and I said, ‘For crying out loud, we have to do something to the male,’” she said.

A World of Betas

To Dr. Turek, who is also an adviser to Future Family, people waking up to the importance of sperm as a measure of health is good news — it means men will finally start thinking about preventive care. Low sperm counts and low motility could be a sign of bigger current or future health problems, he said.

“Men with low sperm counts don’t live as long,” Dr. Turek said. “Something wicked this way comes.”

Business is growing. He has opened a new satellite office in San Jose and has started a series of Facebook Live talks. He blogs regularly (recent posts include “Are You Going Extinct?” and “Is Bigger Better When It Comes to Testicles?”).

At his clinic, sports are on TV in the waiting room, and the walls are painted dark. The room Dr. Turek calls the “masturbatorium” has a lava lamp, framed Playboy magazines and a photo of a vintage Maserati (his own).

Dr. Turek thinks the decline in sperm count and quality may be related to relatively inactive, physically noncompetitive modern life, but to him that is probably just fine since he said fecundity seems stable.

“Our sperm look terrible compared to most animal species, land or marine. That’s real alpha stuff. Ours looks like crap,” he said. “If you’re married and you’re a captive audience, demand is low, and maybe don’t need it. Maybe that’s what the drop is adjusting for. Maybe it’s evolutionarily fine. Maybe the drop plateaus here.”

“Over the last 100 years of industrialization, we’re living better, longer, and we’re certainly fatter,” Dr. Turek said. “We’re not cave men anymore. We’ve industrialized ourselves. We probably need less sperm.”

(Original source)