Expert: Walter Hintz - 3/7/2008

Question
QUESTION: Hello.  I have a bio-sexual question that I have had a hard time finding an answer to.  After sexual intercourse, whether or not it results in pregnancy, exactly what effect does the absorption of the male's genetic material into the woman's body have on the her?  Is there some kind of quiet configuration that occurs between her body and his semen?

ANSWER: I do not know where you got the idea that semen is absorbed into the female body but it is not. It it was there would be a foreign body reaction. Most of the semen remains in the upper vaginal area.  Keep in mind that the interior of all body cavities with an opening to the outside are actually outside of the body.  After the sperm cells get through a mucus plug in the cervix remaining material passes out of the vagina.

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QUESTION: So you're saying some sperm cells make through to the uterus while most of the seminal fluid comes back out of her body - without any absorption or effect on her?  Then what does occur with those sperm cells that make it through to the uterus when there is no pregnancy?  There is no lasting effect immunologically or ontologically?

ANSWER: Sperm cells have a short life span.  They contain only enough energy to try to reach the egg and the die.  They do not enter the female body.  Material left in the female tract will eventually pass out.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Just one more follow-up if I could, and let me be specific.  The sperm cells that have passed through the cervix and into the uterus eventually die; but death only relates to the motility of the sperm cells.  What exactly happens to the genetic material of the sperm cells inside of the uterus and the fallopian tubes that have already "died"?

Thank you.

Answer
You have raised interesting questions and I did a little research on the topic. It is difficult to find any real information of the fate of sperms. It has been found that after fertilization there is a retrograde movement of sperm cells and that most return to the cervix and vagina. This would also be the case without fertilization. They would then be expelled.
I can only come up with the conclusion that all material will be removed from the female genital tract.  I can see no way that the material can enter the epithelial tissue lining the tubes and uterus.
  If you can find out any other information please let me know.