First it was hot tubs. Then jockey shorts. Now the latest threat to male fertility is heated seats. According to research published in New Scientist magazine (and reported by eGMCarTech.com ), heated car seats can toast one's testicles to the point that sperm production shuts down. While the ideal temperature for the little swimmers is 96 degrees Fahrenheit, test subjects found their family jewels were steamed to a toasty 99 degrees (don't ask me where they stuck the thermometer). Don't worry too much, though. Researchers do say for any real damage to take place, you'd have to be sitting on a heated seat "for a long time on a regular basis." Of course, if you habitually shoot blanks you should just have the balls to admit it instead of trying to blame it on your car…
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Saving the best stories for last, Frank?
I still think that heated seat symbols on their corresponding switchgear looks a bit like a magical hockey stick.
N85523: A magical hockey stick with stereo speakers.
There were stories a few years back with laptops being too hot to place on… your lap. And I can’t imagine three degrees doing that much damage, because otherwise, you’d be screwed in the summertime.
I’ve always hated seat heaters, now I have scientific proof of their evil!
–chuck
Awesome, now I have an excuse not to wear protection!
…otherwise, you’d be screwed in the summertime.
Ahahahahahaha.
Yes, I am that immature.
Time for a return to the original heated and cooled seats – high quality cloth.
Maybe it’s a good thing my Mazda6’s heated seats automatically crap out after 5 minutes. On a cold day, getting a leather seat just a little warmer is all that’s really needed.
Tommy has a point, though. Summertime heat is far worse. I’ve roasted pretty well on leatherette seats that had baked in the LA sun for the better part of a day. Definitely a lot hotter than the average heated seat.
In my early 20s, an iBook caused me to seek a urologist’s services.
No lie. Prostatitis, and it hasn’t gone away. DO NOT SIT YOUR LAPTOP ON YOUR LAP :)
I don’t know what’s worse, really– pretending heated seats are a hazard, or driving with one’s testicles resting on the seat. I mean– briefs keep you from sitting on them in everyday life– are we just not wearing briefs these days?
Is it just as uncool to wear “your father’s underwear” as it is to buy the same type of car?
truckster>station wagon>minivan>suv>cuv…
loincloth>boxer>brief>boxerbrief? I wear the boxerbrief, but ya know– it really only offers the modesty of a boxer short, with the tightness of a brief– just doesn’t keep the buoys up front.
“Works for me.”
iNeon: TMI, thanks.
With modern HVAC, I can’t imagine heated seats being all that terribly useful – in the wintertime, aren’t you already bundled up? Yes, I like wearing my thick -30 degree parka and having my butt roasted.
Cooled seats (like that one interview Robert conducted a while back) however, could be quite the luxury…
Guys, the outside temperature doesn’t invariably determine your INTERNAL temperature. That’s why we have things like sweat glands. And skin.
Air is a lousy transmitter of heat. There’s a great big difference between being out in air temperatures that your body can easily regulate (mostly with the ever-popular “swamp ass”) and applying your nuts directly to a heat source.
You’re only in trouble in the summertime if you enjoy getting naked and lying face-down on the sidewalk. And I don’t just mean your sperm prodution – the likely jailtime would be hazardous to other body parts, too.
junior mint:
though you are right, how about sitting on a leather car seat that has been baking in the sun for 8 hours…
much hotter than a heated seat…
You people must all live in LA. Those of us in the Snowbelt know that heated seats are excellent for the first five minutes of driving on a winter day after the car has been sitting in the driveway under a blanket of snow. (And no, I don’t have a heated garage. A big house, a barn, a studio and a 4,000-acre forest, but I hate garages.)
Then you turn it off. Your ass becomes the seat-heater.
I never did like heated seats and refused to use them in my wife’s cars. Maybe my nads were trying to tell me something. Now that we’re done babymaking I guess I needn’t worry about that angle anymore, except I don’t like that warm feeling on my otherwise cool body that makes me feel like I soiled myself as were driving around.
Added bonus: my wife had a Saab in which the heater for the driver’s seat quit working, and she looooves heated seats, so in the winter I’d get to hoon drive while she toasted her tushie over in the passenger seat.
You’re very welcomed Tom.
But you should know that TMI would have been mentioning the digital-rectal prostate exam that diagnosed.
It was a lot like buying a car, actually.
Go far enough off-topic, and you’ll find yourself at the beginning :)
This could be a good thing. It’s a lot cheaper and less painful than a vasectomy.
We had an Impala with heated seats and they were great. The back as well as the bottom was heated, and on long trips when my back started acting up, I’d flip the heater on for a few minutes. It was like putting a heating pad on my aching back.
Our A4 has them and only the bottom of the seat is heated. We’ve never turned them on.
Our A4 has them and only the bottom of the seat is heated. We’ve never turned them on.
Frank are you sure about that? My family had Audis going back to the early 80s and they all had heated seats that heated the back and the bottom. My guess is compared to a GM product you might not be aware of how subtle the back portion of the heat is. Or maybe Audi cheaped out when no one was looking and took the backside heater pad out.
We had an Impala with heated seats and they were great.
I have experience with GMs seat heaters as well. I had a Buick Regal with them. On high they were ludicrous. High would warm the seat to full ass-burn in about 10 secs. At least there was a “low” setting.
iNeon: If your laptop caused your prostatitis, you were using it wrong. Just sayin’.
Back to topic, heated car seats can toast one’s testicles to the point that sperm production shuts down. Permanently? I doubt it. I take showers hotter than 99* every day. I’m not interested in reading the article, but how close were the berries to the seat? Not every man is built the same…
I don’t know about heated seats, as it maybe gets cold enough 1 or 2 days out of the year here to even think about using them (a single overnight dip to near freezing this past winter prompted panic amongst many that their landscaping would die).
What I want to know is why cooled seats aren’t as ubiquitous as the heated oned are. The airconditioned seats are standard on all Lincolns now (save the ancient towncar and epitome of badge engineering Mark LT) and it is a big selling point. Making cooled seats a feature in mid or even low priced vehicles would get a lot of peoples attention, not only in the sun belt, but anywhere where the summer heat can cause leather to become less than pleasant.
And as stated above, while cloth does do a better job that leather in the extremes of heat and cold, a lot of people just prefer leather for the appearance, stain resistance, durability (if it is good leather), upscale factor, and non-temperature related general comfort.
Thanks Frank for the funny going out party!
No more heated seats, except in countries with out of control birth rates.
And get this…my wife just went out and purchased one of those ear thingies that makes you look like you’re in between film shots of a Star Treck movie.
She explained she just heard that cell phones cause brain tumors!
Well, I have one that was surgically attached to my hip a long time ago and I still seem OK…?
As a side note today, I was renting a car for a business trip and there was a young man from some European nation asking us what was wrong with this country.
He couldn’t believe the motorcycle drivers were NOT wearing helmets.
In Europe, you had to, and you should!
Well, I reminded him that we had just finished discussing his recovery from a terrible motorcycle accident.
I asked if he had been wearing his seatbelt.
What?!
A motorcycle isn’t required to have seatbelts OR airbags!!!?
What gives?
I have to wear a seatbelt in a 35,000 car with crush zones and 8 airbags…and a motorcycle rider doesn’t?
I demand we get more laws out and fix this horrible societal wrong!!!!
Safety first!
We need to make life safe…at all cost!
…und you vil enjoy it!
( my attempt at german)