Much like semen itself, this is a myth that seems to exist in endless supply. Starting in the mid aughts, a new celebrity or viral sensation has perpetuated the practice of a “semen facial” almost every year: the late Cosmo editor Helen Gurney Brown, Melrose Place star Heather Locklear, a 67-year-old grandmother, the list goes on.Ĭosmo was still weighing the pros and cons of the “semen facial” as recently as last March. And in one particularly memorable subplot of Nip/Tuck, the show’s female characters market a face cream made from male ejaculate to Joan Rivers.
In her song “H.W.C.”-I’ll leave you to Google what that stands for-Liz Phair brags that her “skin’s getting clear” from her active sex life. I’m talking, of course, about the myth that semen is good for the skin.
If you’re a young heterosexual woman, you may have heard it from a man in high school or college and if you’re a young heterosexual man, you may have said this to a woman during those same years of your life-and hopefully not after. Maybe you learned about it from an episode of HBO’s Real Sex or perhaps you are one of the hundreds of gullible people who continue to ask about it every year on Yahoo! Answers. You might have learned about it from a Liz Phair song or seen it depicted on the FX series Nip/Tuck.