Tricky, Tricky Cowper's Gland!

Back in Sex School, my anatomy professor's favorite body part was the little known Cowper's Gland located just off of the male urethra. I know it was his favorite because he told us so countless times. Why was it his favorite? "Because this is the little bugger that gets soooo many people into trouble!"

That's right, it's because of this teeny gland (actually it's two teeny glands) that the "withdrawal" method of contraception has such a high failure rate! You did know that the withdrawal method is NOT very effective against pregnancy, right?! Right?! Well if you didn't know before, you know now. Pulling the penis out of the vagina just before male ejaculation is NOT A GOOD WAY TO PREVENT PREGNANCY (and obviously does not prevent sexually transmitted infections either!) Here's the reason why.

Let's return to the Cowper's Gland. If you start at the head of the penis and work your way up the inside of the urethra, you'll quickly find the Cowper's Gland. Its reproductive function is to provide pre-ejaculate or "pre-cum" as it's better known...those first few drops that appear at the tip of the penis during arousal. This fluid's main job is not to give your partner something to lick before penetration (though many guys may try to convince you otherwise). Its actual job is to neutralize any acid left over within the urethra by the passage of urine. Since urine is acidic and acid kills sperm, its best to flush out the urethra with something sperm-friendly before the mighty army marches on down to the promised land. (By the way, if those sperm are heading into a vagina, roughly 1/3 of them will be killed instantly by the vagina's own acids anyway!)

So, lucky for those sperm, the Cowper's Gland at least gives them a fighting chance before they leave the penis! Now for the tricky part.

The Cowper's Gland does not produce sperm at all (that's the testes role), nor does it purposefully store sperm (that's the epididymis)...BUT sperm does get trapped in the Cowper's Gland on its way out of the urethra during ejaculation! What does this mean to you?

It means that your morning masturbation session has accidentally left behind some live sperm in your Cowper's gland, and when you have your after-dinner sex tonight those left-behind sperm will inconveniently pop out along with your pre-cum. If your penis happens to be in a vagina without a condom on it at this time, those sperm could potentially impregnate your parter regardless of whether you ejaculate or not! (Although the odds of those few sperm getting all the way up to a fallopian tube alive seems rather small...we all know it DOES happen!!)

There you have it. Now when someone says "Oh we won't get pregnant, he always pulls out before he cums" you can sound like a smarty-pants and explain all about the Cowper's Gland and why that method of contraception fails so often!