genuinegirly

If your heat went out in the middle of winter, and you were in the chilly Netherlands, would you feel inclined to procreate?

I thought this article was pretty silly. Do we really know that the blackout and births are linked? There has to be a lurking variable. I personally don't think that freezing cold temperatures could be a turn-on, but what do I know? I've never been without heat in the dead of winter.

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abaya

Yeah, it's particularly odd because it doesn't account for birth control, either--I mean, sure I'll have sex during a blackout, but I'm not going to yank out my NuvaRing, wait for 3 hours until all the hormones have simmered down and possibly released an egg, and THEN have sex, y'know?... same thing for the pill, etc. (Unless maybe the alarm clock for women to take the pill doesn't go off due to the blackout, so then they get pregnant?)

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stevie667

Huzzah, there is hope for men world wide who can't afford heating!

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SabrinaFair

Sounds a lot like a Snopes article I read...
snopes.com: Blackout Baby Boom

I doubt there's a causal link between this blackout and "baby boom"....sounds a bit "post hoc ergo propter hoc"

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BadNick

You guys are missing the point: some legends are not meant to be questioned. Just go with the flow. If heats off or lights out, hit the sack and get warmed up. Not every problem in the universe has to become a scientific, mathematical/statistical equation.

any excuse to cuddle = fun

levite

I'm willing to believe it.

Would I be turned on by darkness and lack of heat?

I'm a sex-obsessed hairy Jew who thinks too much: I'd get horny if the lightbulb burned out in my apartment. Housebound in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but shag and eat leftover klippfisk? I could probably repopulate the steppes of Outer Mongolia....

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JamesB

While only 1 point does not make a line .. I refuse to reject the hypothesis based on lack of more data.

There are plenty of cases where a natural disaster (or similar) has seen a rise in births approx. 9 months after said event. As an example, Mt. St Hellens.

This would make an interesting meta-analysis of similar cases to see if in fact there is a positive correlation.

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ASU2003

And yet I hardly use my heat during the winter and have no kids.

Then again, I use natural gas heat as well.

inBOIL

Using the Dutch oven method to keep your partner warm?

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laconic1

It never fails that 9 months after a blizzard around here the news people always have a special report about the "baby boom" taking place at local hospitals. They invariably interview some low level staffer who anecdotally notes that they seem to be delivering more babies lately. Then they interview some of the couples having the babies who sheepishly grin and admit that they were getting busy during the days around the blizzard. Yet when they show the raw numbers it is only maybe one birth a day more than normal, hardly enough to be a trend attributable simply to blizzard sex.

biznatch

Heh, would be kind of funny and cool if true. And I could totally understand spending many more hours laying down snuggling with your SO if there's no lights and not much to do.

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ItWasMe

I'm sleeping on the sofa the next time the power goes out. Alone.

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rmarshall

Many good things are attributed to simply turning the clocks back an hour in the fall. A reduction in traffic accidents and a reduction in heart attacks. I wonder if there are more babies born 9 months after the clocks are put back? A whole hour of extra cuddling in the morning and all that morning wood is good for something!

Re: the blackout: Personally, I think if it got really cold, the kids would crawl into the master bed too and nip any thoughts of nooky.

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Magpie_1

I agree.

Slims

heh, maybe they just couldn't see where they put the condoms...

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