MDMA and loud music affects rat sex life

No, it's not a joke. Researchers at the University of Bari, Italy, studied how MDMA (ecstasy) and loud music impact the sexual activity of rats. They report their results in the scientific journal European Reiew for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences. According to their experiments, MDMA impaired the rats' sexual behavior while loud music seemed to increase the number of rats getting it on. From the paper abstract:

However, combined treatment of MDMA and music stimulation did not fully restore normal sexual behavior as the animals reaching ejaculation still showed a marked reduction of copulatory efficiency. These findings demonstrate that the systemic administration of a single low dose of MDMA, alone or in combination with loud music, which is commonly present in certain environments such as rave parties, notably impairs copulatory activity of male rats.

"Effects on rat sexual behaviour of acute MDMA (ecstasy) alone or in combination with loud music"

• [belgium]

  From what I hear (I haven’t yet tried it personally) combining viagra and MDMA so you’re able to have sex while you’re high is unbelievable.

  Though it is worth noting that you run serious risks of heart attacks using this method, so the sex better be really, really good.

• [angusm]

  Now I’m going to go out and scatter handfuls of ecstasy in the empty lots on my street, see if I can’t do something about the neighborhood rat problem.

  I love the term “copulatory efficiency”: “You say ‘premature ejaculation’, I say ‘copulatorily efficient’.” …

• [Kittekaat]

  Umm, it’s too bad they couldn’t ask the female rats their feelings about “copulatory efficiency.” I rather prefer it a great deal more that “efficient” copulators.

  Clueless, if you wait until after the peak, the sex is delicious!

• [hassan-i-sabbah]

  Sounds just like my flat , most weekends, from 1989 til about 2005.cept we’re not rats(I think…)

• [Orchestra Spy]

  yeah I had sex last night. good sex. I wasn’t using MDMA though. And no rats. But the cat kept sticking his claw under the door. I think he was jealous. Can I get a WOOT?

• [ian_b]

  I know the manager of this maze!

• [samuraizenu]

  Wooooot!

• [minamisan]

  “studied rats” my ass. it was just a good excuse to get hold of some legal, good quality E and gobble it. they just kept a couple of rats in a cage at the lab to make it look scientifically legit.

• [Anonymous]

  as usual science is behind the game, how doe said rats fare on loud music, E, and cialis?

• [Jim_Graham]

  They could have conducted the same research on humans for free out at Burning Man.

  Ok, I guess they’d have to buy tickets, but otherwise.

• [Anonymous]

  So, can we get ecstasy distributed for free as part of a public heath campaign to reduce teenage pregnancies?

• [Hamish Grant]

  Didn’t they do an experiment like this in the Ramones’ Rock & Roll High School?

• [arkizzle]

  Alkwerte

  What does .. music .. look like?

  Normalized that for ya.

• [Mindpowered]

  Being Italian researchers it was probably Benny Benassi being blast. “Satisfaction” or “Who’s your dadday?”

• [arkizzle]

  “Remember, there’s no “E” in rogering.”

  Yes there is, right between the gee! and the aarr! :)

• [arkizzle]

  Clueless @15, see KitteKaat @21.

  “Clueless, if you wait until after the peak, the sex is delicious!”

  Spot on.

• [bigfatgreg]

  thank god!

• [minTphresh]

  it never got in this male rat’s way!

• [Frank_in_Virginia]

  …marked reduction of copulatory efficiency…

  Well sure it would if that’s what you want to call it. Add a glass of wine, soften the music, and say those sweet words mama rat wants to hear and you will soon be making the two rat’s backed monster.

• [mdh]

  After babysitting my friends on E one night in the mid 90′s I decided never ever ever to touch the stuff. It seems to me like a way to borrow a weeks worth of joy for use over a few hours, and at a terrible interest rate. This post is just gravy.

• [keratacon]

  Someone is the Pied Piper of grant writing.

• [Drew from Zhrodague]

  “Copulatory efficiency,” but nothing about quality or quantity. Should I read the paper to find out what kind of loud music? I’m willing to bet that Isaac Hayes wasn’t involved.

• [padster123]

  Not news. Many stimulants make it harder to actually get it on, or to actually “get there”:

  “It provokes the desire but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him and it mars him; it sets him on and it takes him off.”

  Shakespeare

• [Alkwerte]

  What does the music for rats look like?

• [John Markos O’Neill]

  Is copulatory efficiency supposed to be a good thing?

  Maybe they should get a room.

• [Purly]

  lolz

  MDMA rat poison. Guaranteed to reduce the number of offspring your rats will have.

• [dculberson]

  Efficiency? I don’t know about you, but I’m not looking for efficiency. I take steps to make sure it’s decidedly inefficient.

• [Paco]

  Our office has a clean room and I can’t help but imagine everybody in there with their pristine lab coats and thick safety glasses blasting some Bassnectar or Röyksopp and attentively studying some rats in candyland…

• [jody]

  Utterly inadequate claptrap and a waste of grant dollars. While rat biology helps to model various human body systems, including sexual behavior and neurology, the complexity of human social
  life makes this whole thing an exercise in mooted nonsense.

• [The Visitor]

  Remember, there’s no “E” in rogering.

• [jody]

  Utterly inadequate claptrap and a waste of grant dollars. While rat biology helps to model various human body systems, including sexual behavior and neurology, the complexity of human social life makes this whole thing an exercise in mooted nonsense.

• [Red Leatherman]

  I’m with MDH on point, and they needed rats to figure this out? They could have ask. a lot of us have been around long enough to have seen lots of examples.
  To Drew, I don’t know what listening to Issac Hays singing Shaft would do but I’m not willing to find out, care to test it out and get back with the results? I’ll test using Enigma then Marvin and compare and whats that number to call for grant money?

• [Shelby Davis]

  I’m calling it: 2 weeks until this shows up in an xkcd cartoon.

• [ZoopyFunk]

  I prefer my X without the meth, thank you very much. If your not doing the pure crystal, your damaging yourself beyond belief.

• [clueless in brooklyn]

  MDH-

  I wouldn’t base the recreational effects of a drug based on soberly attending to a couple who are having tripping on E.

  For those who have taken E, I really don’t know anyone who had sex on it. You’re overwhelmed by the simplest touch, let alone sexual intercourse.

  MDMA was called the sex drug completely inappropriately if only to use the term as a fearful sound bite for local news; more than anything it turned non-sexual interaction into something as good as sober sex.

  The study is retarded. I really miss my access to pure MDMA from those trustafarians in Marin County.

• [clueless in brooklyn]

  The number for grant money involving the music of Enigma is 1(800)-Barfmusic

• [Strophe]

  @MDH #4
  Remarkably well said.

• [grimc]

  But what kind of loud music? If it was, say, Miley Cyrus being blasted who can blame the MDMA or the rats?