It’s Thursday again, and I think we all know what that means: it’s Thaco Thursday! Oh crap, wait, that’s not right. I mean it’s Conspiracy Theory Thursday! You know, the series I started last week and I suspect most of you assumed, quite reasonably, that I would have forgotten about by now. But I didn’t! At least, not yet. So get ready to open your minds for a new installment, and, actually, maybe open your legs, too, because this time our theory is all about crotches, and the fruits thereof. And car HVAC systems.
Specifically, I want to talk about one particular component of car HVAC systems, one of the airflow vents that was commonly installed in car air conditioning systems from the 1960s up until around the early 1990s, though they peaked in popularity sometime around the mid-1970s. I’m talking about a small vent, usually able to be directionally adjusted on the vertical axis, that was positioned directly below the steering column on the driver’s side, and if present on the passenger side, would be installed below the glove box.
I’m talking about crotch coolers.
Crotch coolers get their name from the fact that these vents are unusually well positioned to blow air on that hottest, moistest of human body crevasses, the crotch. Even prior to cars having air conditioning, there were some fresh air-based crotch cooling solutions, as you can see on this 1952 Volkswagen Beetle:
…but I’m primarily talking about the A/C-fed crotch-cooling vents on cars, and primarily (but not exclusively) American cars.
Here’s a nice little video discussing the crotch-cooling vents and even speculating on some reasons for their demise:
Okay, so let’s get into the conspiracy theory part of all of this. I’m not sure how well you keep up with the average sperm count of the average male, but if you haven’t been paying attention, it seems that the news isn’t great. On average, studies are showing that sperm count has been dropping pretty precipitously since the 1970s. If modern semen was a muffin, and sperm were blueberries, then semen since the 2000s is more like Robert DeNiro’s blueberry muffin in this scene from the 1995 movie Casino, and 1970s semen is more like the other guy’s:
If you prefer a more scientific chart format instead of a cinematic muffin/mafia-related analogy, you can see the trend here:
Now, I’ve highlighted the periods of time when crotch cooler vents were commonplace, and, as you can see, sperm count was much higher in that era. It’s pretty clear why this is the case: without the summertime cooling effect of the crotch cooler vents, testicles have been dangerously overheated and just simmering like a Ziploc bag holding a pair of meatballs boiling on a stove. Other trends like skinny jeans and cell phones in groin-adjacent pockets may be factors as well, but the real issue is that without the cooling reprieve of the crotch coolers, nuts have been getting cooked en masse.
This leads us to our conspiracy:
The removal of crotch cooler vents in cars has directly caused a dramatically lower sperm count in men, which was part of an intentional plan by the Freemasons and the Automotive Industry for the purposes of directed population control and genetic manipulation.
Now, I had to extrapolate the Freemason and genetic manipulation parts, but we can definitely see the direct correlation between the end of the crotch cooler era and the lowering of sperm counts.
[Ed Note: If you want actual science, it turns out too much heated seat use is not good for sperm count, and neither is prolonged time sitting behind the wheel! -DT]
Can I prove any of this conclusively? Well, no, mostly because I just don’t have enough sperm samples from the 1970s in good condition, and every time I try to get samples from my contemporaries I encounter in society, they either slap me and threaten to involve the authorities or they demand I get into their car and have far too many demands for how the sample is to be collected. It’s not practical, so this will remain just a conspiracy theory.
But you know what that means! Spread it all around! Killing the crotch cooler is killing sperm!
You’re reading it backwards, my brother in nads. Sperm counts started declining immediately after the advent of crotch coolers.
The question is why. The science is clear that heat is bad for sperm. So are crotch coolers themselves the conspiracy? A lie peddled by Big Testis? Are they blowing warm air instead of the promised haboob of seed preservation? What is really going on here?
Came here to say that. Thank you. 🙂
It’s the plastics, Jason. The plastics! You see, the timeline since we stopped using metal and glass in car interiors and moved to plastics aligns perfectly with the drop in fertility rates! The plastics rub off onto you, get into your blood, get into your junk. They change your hormonal response so that it’s more rational than emotional. They sell more CUVs this way. The CUVs are filled with plastic so you’ll buy even more CUVs in the future. It’s an ant lion’s trap of chemical manufacturing, I tells ya!
I’ve got one word for you.
Plastic.
New car scent can’t be good for hormones. Which is why I drive old cars, and my sperm comes out like M&Ms and cannot be stopped.
Noting the sperm count chart only starts at 1970 and drops from there, the answer is the cancelation of the Apollo program, that having a bunch of Corvette-driving steely eyed missle men commandeering a phallic rocket to the moon in the public consciousness drove testosterone and sperm counts to such stratospheric levels that there was geally nowhere to go but down.
On average, studies are showing that sperm count has been dropping pretty precipitously since the 1970s.
And yet the global population has doubled. Go figure.
For about three decades we had more free time to try getting freaky. Not so much since 2010.
Ironic considering that the level of porn addiction has skyrocketed since they first started recording it in just 2000 from less than 1% to 13% of the global population.
My guess is weight gain and prescription drugs.
I have say this is wacko. As a child of the 60s and 70s where the male bicycle had a bar to jam your junk and we played real life sports requiring a jock and cup that was brewing our junk, and to test the cup we kicked each other in our junk and yeah no cars had AC i don’t think not having an AC Vent aimed at our junk is a big concern.
Is there anyone at Autopian over 40? It is bad enough that there is no economic testing of articles but now we have no real comparison of sack tests.
Think about it my generation had no protective devices for kids. No seat belts for anyone. Drum brakes. Yet we were able to worry scientists that we would overpopulate the planet. But now we got Jason worried we can’t create enough kids to offset population loss because we don’t have crotch AC for Gen XYZ Living in their parents basement.
Does this mean Tesla will be installing crotch coolers now?
The burning question is what do you have to touch and manipulate to get things working, set the angle, discharge rate, you know, the important things.
Seems like a good time to tell a silly story: An ex-girlfriend of mine drove a Plymouth Sundance, which was not equipped with such vents, but it did have an air leak somewhere in the firewall that caused a draft under the dash.
She complained about it when the weather turned cold, and asked me to investigate. I drove it, didn’t feel a thing, and came back and told her so.
“Ah” she said, “but did you try driving it wearing a skirt?”
I confessed I did not, nor was I about to.
A more thorough investigation yielded a missing grommet on the firewall around the accelerator cable, which was causing the draft. And that was how I learned that some automotive problems are very much situational.
A very common problem for the Chrysler Corp FWD cars of that era.
IIRC my Omni leaked from both the clutch cable grommet and the fast pedal one also.
Is there any part the Omni did not leak from?
I had an Omni from that era. I think calling it a “fast peddle” might be a misnomer.
The program has run its course, the mice are tabulating the results. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Uhmm… I’m not sure whether I would expecting a headline like this to come from Infowars or the now-The Onion-owned Infowars, but I can’t say that I was expecting it to come from here
https://gizmodo.com/the-onion-wins-auction-to-take-over-infowars-2000524506
I was literally not surprised at all, ha ha
That’s why you need a Jewel Cooler !!! 1 Set Jewel Cooler for Car, Easy to use Car Air Conditioning Vent Extensions in Summer or Winter,Jewel Cooler for Men Ball in Car（2.6ft）(Green) https://a.co/d/bjfloWz
Am I the only one who sees something else in the Amazon logo?
The Onion just announced its purchase of the assets of Infowars (some background from the AP here), and this sounds like a fine topic for their first major investigation under their upcoming ownership.
So the company with funny fake news just bought the company that spewed scary fake news. This could be interesting.
Tracking the times with all the facts you need in todays fast paced world.
And the Onion was bought from the herb who brought you the Autopian by turning gizmodo into the cesspool of sadness it has become.
Um, that’s THAC0, and it hasn’t been used in several editions, excuse me. [pushes glasses up nose]
I’m convinced it’s all the microplastics we’ve been consuming, but hey, you do you.
And this is why when we switched to Toyota trucks for the boss and self a crotch vent for the A/C was icing on the cake…Or however the young folks say it today.
But in all honesty I tend to put some stock in your demented take here Torch.
Too late to edit…But the boss also enjoyed the benefits of the Holy Crotch Vent.
Her two older sisters had a habit of riding around with the vents closed, circa 1965-75 with the vents closed. And the A/C set on defrost with the fan at highest speed.
Being Alabama girls they understood well the issues related to heat and crotch matters.
(trying to be delicate here) My wife was a decade younger than her sisters but was educated on the value of the crotch vent by age 9.
When she told me this story I about pissed my pants laughing. To use the oldest sister’s words, “preventing a beast infection is job #1. No shit, honest truth.
So my poor wife spent the next 40 years being reminded by me to be sure the crotch vent was operating and pointed in the correct direction.
In order to prevent said beast infection.
Alabama people can be weird, but especially the single teenaged girls from back then. YMMV
Pretty sure a beast infection is how SheHulk was made
They have been replaced by the far more expensive – but very satisfying when done right – cooled seats.
Scraping the bottom of the barrel in topics, sheesh
Not a scrape so much as a smear.
As a space lizard posing as a human, I find this decline in crotch vents and fertility very concerning. This is our future food supply!
I mean our future children. Disregard the food supply comment.
So YOU’RE responsible for my fat!! Well feel free to teleport me to your lizardship and liposuction it out anytime.
uh, wait, that doesn’t sound right…
Yup. The obesity epidemic is totally us fattening you up. Nice marbling in the meat, and all. And we live in underground bases. No lizardships in orbit. It’s those damn Greys flying around up there. Cocky basterds.
And we live in underground bases.
Ugh, with the CRAB PEOPLE?
EWWWW!!
They are delicious. Our version of surf and turf is epic!
The silly thing is, if the corporate oligarchy that we have so intelligently chosen to lead our nation going forward really wanted to mess around with population numbers, they’d be making it higher.
Think about it. Musk needs warm bodies, Bezos needs warm bodies, they all want lots of proles so that the value of our labor is reduced, and we will be happy to work any job no matter how illucrative or terrible the job is.
Reducing the population would be counterproductive to their goals.
No prole-related conspiracy needed to realize that SS/Medicare are funded by working people and the ratio of workers to retirees has been trending less and less favorable for decades. That alone is reason to want a higher population.
Or, we could just fund those programs with rich people’s money instead. And I mean REALLY rich.
You could take every dollar from every billionaire and not come close to making up the shortfall just in the next decade.
You could eliminate the wage cap entirely and gain only 5 years of solvency.
https://manhattan.institute/article/problems-with-eliminating-the-social-security-tax-cap
The only ways out are more workers, higher taxes for everyone, or lower benefits.
You could take every dollar from every billionaire and not come close to making up the shortfall just in the next decade.
That would be a good start
Jus not them thar eemmygrunts! Wees only wont them hoam-groan peeples!
That just kicks the can down the road. We need a better solution than a pyramid scheme. It’s worth keeping in mind that it was a population boom that got us into this mess.
I nominate robots.
As someone whose Social Security starts next month, I approve this message!
They do want more people. Musk has a bunch of kids he doesn’t bother himself to parent (and dodges financial support for, at least with some of them) and has gone on multiple times about how people aren’t having enough kids and most of the platform of The Party seems to be based on women being basically breeding livestock. Of course, they mostly mean people of a certain background having more kids. Me, my biggest fear is that reincarnation is real and that I’ll have to come back as a filthy f’n human. With whatever makes the rules, I’ll be demanding I’ll only agree to come back as one if I get to witness our extinction.
I plan on coming back as a Labrador.
In England.
I’m shooting for a ground slug in Duluth, for maximum climate survivability.
I would have thought a Banana slug on the central Pacific coast would be more to your liking.
Nope, PNW is suseptible to volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Duluth is forever.
Why not a cockroach in Albuquerque?
“MMmmm – This Radioactive glass is Tasty!”
Not sure about that plan.
They’re eating the dogs.
Or shooting the uncooperative ones.
Not in England
Duluth might not be quite far enough north. She’s going national now, so Canada might be a better option. At least until it’s decided Canada is just “Upper US”.
I’m coming back as a VW “Bug”
(Or Super”bee” or Road Runner)
Ok, or AMC “Eagle!”
*giggles*
But don’t worry, we’ll get them sperm counts back up when we get to reintroduce leaded gas after Lord Darkmoney get’s appointed EPA chief!
Takin’ the fluoride out of the water and puttin’ lead back in the gas!
Thought the phrase involved pencils or something?
Is it just me, or does Jason sound a little testy in today’s post?
No, he’s always this nuts.
☜╮(´ิ∀´ิ☜╮) Indeed he is, and I fit right in here with his group! 🙂
You’ve got some balls sayin’ that.
Yes, I guess you could say that I was being a little ballsy 😉
That pun is some low hanging fruit
Not true! Bollocks I say!!
That take is pure phallacy
There’s a seed of truth in that statement.
Dude, you have some real cojones to say something like that! 😉
You are too spunky!
I have nuttin’ else to say!!
Careful. We don’t want to get anyone sacked.
Of course not! I hope I don’t sound cocky.
Penis.
I’ll have you know that I prefer “tallywhacker” over your vulgar usage of “penis” 😉
Do better! LOL!
Shmekel.
Much better! 😉
Words should be weighed, not counted.
(Verter zol men vegn un nit tseyln.)
Wang. The correct answer is always wang.
Everybody Wang Chung Tonite!
“…I suspect most of you assumed, quite reasonably, that I would have forgotten about by now.”
Like the World’s Worst Car series?
too soon
Mercury Mondays lasted less than one solar orbit for our speedy neighbor.
Mercury Monday and Glorious Garbage were my favorites.
This feels like a lost segment from a Rogan/Huberman podcast.
New for ‘78: standard A/C with TestiCooler
That is very andro-centric. What about the effects on thacos?
Coochie Chillers!
Please, the correct term is ‘Coochie Cooler’.
*Cooter Cooler