Flutterby™! : Abandon bars, go for coffee shops! 2006-01-26 20:51:30.064589+00

Abandon bars, go for coffee shops!

2006-01-26 20:51:30.064589+00 by Dan Lyke 1 comments

Southwestern University study finds caffeine increases sexual motivation in rats:

Guarraci and Benson gave 108 female rats a moderate dose of caffeine before a mating test to determine if the caffeine had any effect on female mating behavior. They found that administration of caffeine shortened the amount of time it took the females to return to the males after receiving an ejaculation, suggesting that the females were more motivated to be with the male rats.

The study is published in the forthcoming issue of Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, but I know many of you have extensive experience in both bars and coffee shops, and I'm wondering if there's any way we can remove the bias from those observations so that we can derive statistically significant information on the effects of caffeine in humans.

For the search engines: That's Fay Guarraci and Staci Benson at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.

Very significant, I think, in the study is the line, "These rats had never had caffeine before," she said. "In humans, it might enhance the sexual experience only among people who are not habitual users."

Basically, give the little rattie some speed for the first time and one would expect the rat, like humans, to run around the house cleaning or somesuch normal task. In rats, I suspect, during a "mating test" normal behavior is mating, so seeing them repeating the task at hand more frequently seems normal under the influence of caffeine for the first time.

As for bars vs coffee shops, one has to have actual conversational skills in a coffee shop while in a bar one needs less conversation and more sensuality. Perhaps one could postulate caffeine helps conversational skills and alcohol helps sensual skills? I dunno about that.