Sex + Time Travel Might Not Mix. Whatever. Who Would You Risk it For?

By Callie Beusman  |  July 19, 2013 | 10:00pm
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Bad news, ladies: scientists have done some research that leads them to believe that time travel and sex don’t mix well — at least not for women (patriarchy strikes again!). This means you probably shouldn’t go back in time and fill your loins with the lusty seed of Julius Caesar, Pamuk from Downton Abbey, the framers of the Constitution, etc. I am so sorry to ruin your Friday like this.

You may have a stupid objection to this point, such as, “Callie, there is no such thing as time travel and probably will not be for a very long time.” To which I say: no one likes a nitpicker. You are officially uninvited from my whimsical Midnight in Paris-style orgy.

The troubling data about sex and time travel comes from a French study conducted on shrimp, as so much knowledge about human sexuality does. According to Popular Science, researchers at the Center for Function and Evolutionary Ecology in Montpellier reanimated brine shrimp eggs preserved since 1985, 1996, and 2007 — a period that represents about 160 generations in all. Because brine shrimp eggs can survive for decades in a dormant stage, they’re “ideal for a time traveling experiment like this one.” Classic brine shrimp — always so ideal for time travel studies.

According to their findings:

They found that females that mated with males from the past or future died off sooner than those that mated with their own generation. The longer the time-shift, the earlier they died: The 22-year time difference shortened female lifetimes by 12 percent; the effect was 3 percent for the 11-year time-shift.

Interestingly, the time difference didn’t affect the viability of the offspring. According to evolutionary biologists, the increased danger of fucking a old-timey hottie (Alexander Hamilton) comes from something known as “antagonistic coevolution.” Basically, all that Battle of the Sexes garbage is kind of true when it comes to the evolution of our ladybits and manparts: according to Popular Science, “males campaign for more offspring—the proverbial seed-spreading — while females play hard-to-get because they bear most of the burden of reproduction and parenthood.” And so our weaponized genitals evolve in order to better suit each individual gender’s needs. Since they evolve in tandem, however, our bodies are accustomed to each other and so no one dies.

In short, mating with a partner from a different generation can be very bad for you: “sort of like heading into modern war with 17th-century armor.” Uh oh.

Well, okay, whatever — no offense to brine shrimp, but they don’t know how to use protection because they’re really simple organisms and they don’t make condoms that small. FURTHERMORE, it looks like gay sex is aaaaaall in the clear (hello, Mary Magdalene). And, finally, there’s seriously no point to even considering time travel technology if we can’t act upon our History Crushes so let’s not let this news quash our dreams.

This brings us to the most important consideration of all: who would you sleep with? I polled some of my coworkers and received the following responses:

  • “I wouldn’t fuck anyone before toothpaste was invented.”
  • “Henry VIII supposedly reeked because he had this open leg wound that would never heal.”
  • “People were really short back then.”
  • “I would fuck Jesus, duh. AND Judas. Drama!”
  • “Young Stalin.”

Very informative answers, all.

And now we shall open it to you all: who would you risk heading into 17th century war with modern armor for? Which history man/woman would you do all the sex things with?

“Why Sex With Creatures From the Future is a Bad Idea” [Popular Science]
Image via Getty.

 
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