Over the past 20 years, doctors have begun to notice an alarming drop in the sperm count of the average American male. Numerous hypotheses have been offered to explain the decrease, and a modest amount of empirical evidence has been collected in support of these hypotheses. Some of the more credible suggestions are:

  1. The environment has reached such a level of toxicity that it is having a direct effect on male reproductive ability. Some go so far as to say that sperm itself has become toxic, and is dangerous to introduce into the female body;
  2. that clothing has become so restrictive that the testicles are cramped and overheated for such prolonged periods over a male’s lifetime that they cannot function normally, and
  3. that excessive sitting further aggravates the problems initiated by restrictive clothing. This circumstance is not limited to couch potatoes and desk jockeys, but also affects those who engage in activities such as bicycle or horseback riding.

The decline in sperm counts has given the eugenic industry an opening to push a number of its products. Sperm banks have continually increased sales over the past decade, but even more insidious methods are now being suggested and used. Men with low sperm counts can have their sperm used in in vitro fertilization to insure success, and even sperm so weak that they are unable to penetrate the cytoplasm of an egg can still successfully fertilize an ovum using the process of assisted hatching. These procedures help to build the perception that extreme medical intervention in the reproductive process is normal and desirable, and this enables medicine to suggest further intervention with more eugenic procedures. Indeed, this is the method of operation for the medical establishment; rather than being proactive in its approach, and helping men to keep their sperm counts up from their youth, it instead builds a market around the pathology. On a biological level, medicine is only compounding the problem that culture started!–the use of unfit sperm will only lead to a new generation that could be weaker than the last.

In order to contribute to solving this problem, The Society for Reproductive Anachronisms has returned to the Renaissance design for clothes to house the male genitals.

The SRA endorses codpieces as a partial means to solve the problem of declining sperm counts. SRA approved codpieces have been redesigned to fit contemporary life styles, and to solve contemporary problems.