Christmas and New Year's Shenanigans
Christmas is a time for penile fractures, New Year's a time for emergency contraception
It’s the Christmas/New Year’s holiday period again, and I came across two studies this week related to this favorite time of the year. They weren’t about food, family, presents, or parties - the things most people associate with the holidays. Instead, they were about sex-related medical issues that spike at around this time: one at Christmas and one at New Year’s.
The first study - one of the most traumatizing studies I’ve read - was titled “Penile Fractures: The Price of a Merry Christmas.” The key finding was that penile fractures spike at Christmas time, at least in Germany where the study was done. As lead author Nikolaos Pyrgidis told The Guardian, the most common cause of these unfortunate injuries is “wild sex – particularly in positions where you’re not in direct eye contact [with your partner], such as the reverse cowgirl.” How does this connect with Christmas? Here’s how Pyrgidis and colleagues explain it in their paper:
In Germany, Christmas is widely celebrated. ‘It's the most wonderful time of the year, there is always much mistletoeing, and hearts are glowing, when loved ones are near’. In other words, Christmas might be a risk factor for penile fractures due to the ‘Christmas spirit’ related to the intimacy and euphoria of these holly jolly days.
To test their horrifying hypothesis, the researchers looked at data from 3,421 German men who’d experienced penile fractures between 2005 and 2021. Sure enough, Christmas was associated with an elevated rate of penile fractures.
I was able to obtain an exclusive reaction from Santa himself to this finding:
Pyrgidis and co. summed up the implications of their research as follows:
our findings do not support Elvis Presley et al. stating that ‘for if every day could be just like Christmas what a wonderful world this would be’, as Christmas was associated with 43% more penile fractures…
Last Christmas penile fractures occurred more often. This year to save us from tears, we will NOT do something special (the new Christmas hit of the year).
So, that’s study one. Study two also dealt with a medical matter, but one of a very different kind. Specifically, it dealt with emergency contraception. Authors Brandon Wagner and Kelly Cleland looked at sales of the morning-after pill from 2016 to 2022, and found that they spiked in the week after the New Year’s holiday. This suggests an increased rate of what scientists call “hanky-panky” during the New Year’s period. More precisely, it suggests an increased rate of unprotected hanky-panky. This isn’t unique to New Year’s, though. The table below shows the change in sales in the weeks following various holidays and celebrations.
As you can see, similar spikes were seen after Valentine’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, and Independence Day, although the New Year’s spike was larger. There were no significant changes in sales after Mothers Day, Fathers Day, or Easter.
In sum, then, penile fractures spike at Christmas, and sales of emergency contraception spike after New Year’s. Why the different spikes for the different holidays? We probably shouldn’t read too much into these findings; the penile-fractures study was conducted only in Germany, and the emergency-contraception study was conducted only in the U.S., so it’s not clear that both patterns will be found in any one country or culture. Still, if we were going to read too much into these studies, what would we read? One possibility is that penile fractures peak around Christmas because Christmas is a time for more adventurous sex within relationships. In contrast, sales of emergency contraception peak after New Year’s Eve because New Year’s Eve is a time when people unexpectedly hook up and then think “Oops.”
Anyway, happy holidays - let’s be careful out there, folks!