NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

<i>Jim Hopkins</i>: Like canaries in trouser mine

By Jim Hopkins
NZ Herald·
23 Oct, 2008 03:00 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Opinion by

KEY POINTS:

Quite why they do what they do is an absolute mystery. Well, it's a mystery to most of us, put it that way.

There's almost certainly bound to be some deeply introspective chap with a beard and appalling interpersonal skills locked away in a laboratory somewhere who's
taken the time and trouble to nut it all out, but most of us wouldn't have a clue.

And, quite frankly, couldn't give a toss, either. We've got much more important things to worry about, like how the heck we're going to pay the psychic's bill now that it's clear we didn't actually win last Saturday's giant-jumbo jackpot $30 million.

It is questions of this nature that vex and perplex us, rather than any speculation about the life and times of those mute, mad and motile wee things we call sperm.

Yet we really should think a little more about those microscopic half-harbingers of life, if only because we owe our very existence to their deranged endeavours.

Or, more precisely, the deranged endeavours of one in particular, the winning sperm, the alpha sperm, the best and brightest sperm, the one who didn't go to Australia but chose to stay home and win the race.

Which itself is an extraordinary thing - the race, that is. Almost as extraordinary as the fact that there's no teacher looking on telling all the other wee sperm they're winners just for taking part.

But why it is that something roughly the size of an anorexic atom, with an IQ of less than a grain of sand, knows how to wriggle its tail and swim to a near-certain death like a suicidal Olympian is precisely the sort of question that should exercise an inquiring mind.

And the sooner the better, you'd have to say, since we've just learnt that the Lesser Spotted Kiwi Sperm is, apparently, dangerously close to appearing on same endangered species list.

Or so we discovered this week, with the release of a shock report showing that New Zealand's sperm count has halved in the past 20 years. Appalling as this is, what's even more alarming is the revelation that we don't know why.

Suffice to say, for some inexplicable reason, our sperm are dying off almost as quickly as those bloomin' snails on the West Coast. Alas, no one's showing the same concern for our vanishing sperm as they have for the imperilled gastropods.

Worried members of S.O.S. (Save Our Sperm) aren't picketing fertility clinics to demand better refrigeration. There's no public clamour for more gummint funding and no bank willing to pay for a special sperm sanctuary. We seem, in short, quite happy to let the frantic little wrigglers sink or swim.

One possible explanation for our indifference is that sperm do actually display the sort of collegial stupidity fallaciously attributed to lemmings. As any feminist will tell you - and any rural vet worth his or her AI straw confirm - it's extremely hard to keep sperm alive for any meaningful length of time.

Mainly because they're as daft as the blokes who produce them. You see, what happens is that sperm get so overexcited at the prospect of hurtling to oblivion that millions of them actually beat themselves to death with their own tails.

It's true! They wiggle so hard they kill themselves. Which doesn't really advance the argument for intelligent design but is a nigh perfect metaphor for most male behaviour.

"Oh, wow! This must be fun. It really hurts!!!!"

Any passing Martian struggling to make comprehensible otherwise inexplicable things like rugby, boxing, bodybuilding, tattoos, triathlons or the voluntary playing of bagpipes need look no further than this spermatozoic self-flagellation. It's in us, lads, whether we like it or not.

Worse still, the exigencies of fashion are compounding the problem. Tighter garments are subjecting the little wags to temperatures way in excess of the optimum. Our sperm are living in the reproductive equivalent of a sauna, which would surely increase the savagery of their assaults.

Then again, it's possible our dying sperm are just the canaries in a trousered mine. We've all seen those stories indicating that science can now efficiently do what nature alone could once achieve. The laboratory has replaced the boudoir as a locale of consummation. Blokes are entirely superfluous in the breeding department.

Perhaps our sperm have just realised the jig is up and simply decided, like the trilobites, to disappear into the mists of time.

If so, some 500 years hence, an intrepid navigator may sail across the steaming Pacific, brought to the boil by global warming, and discover faint traces of a vanished matriarchy on the remote shore of the abandoned land of Outer Roa.

And they may stand in awe and stare at the giant, enigmatic stone figures on the flanks of Rangitoto, faintly resembling the great obelisks of Easter Island, except these are huge and chiselled sperm, staring silently out on a silent sea, waiting forever for their egg to come.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from New Zealand

New Zealand

'Can't get image out of our heads': Worker run over by own truck – witness

New Zealand

Woman tied to a pole and gagged during 100 assaults from partner

New Zealand

The Kiwibank chair who is also a priest: ‘There’s more to life than the corporate world’


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from New Zealand

'Can't get image out of our heads': Worker run over by own truck – witness
New Zealand

'Can't get image out of our heads': Worker run over by own truck – witness

'He fell over and went under the back wheels.'

14 Jul 05:39 AM
Woman tied to a pole and gagged during 100 assaults from partner
New Zealand

Woman tied to a pole and gagged during 100 assaults from partner

14 Jul 05:00 AM
The Kiwibank chair who is also a priest: ‘There’s more to life than the corporate world’
New Zealand

The Kiwibank chair who is also a priest: ‘There’s more to life than the corporate world’

14 Jul 04:42 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP