i can think of no reason why an autoimmune response to your own sperm would not lead to constant inflammation of the testicles which then would probably lead to so much pain, that you'd have your testicles amputated without a second thought
Epididimitis'll have you thinking that way. I remember proudly announcing to all my coworkers that I needed to be out for a month because my left nut had swollen to the size of a tennis ball.
This is another instance where reality defies intuition. See this 10/08 abstract from the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology:
A novel tissue engineering-based assay for immunological infertility.
Ahangari G, Naderimanesh H, Hossein-Nezhad A, Zouali M.
Department of Molecular Medicine and Immunology, National Institute for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Tehran, Iran. [email protected]
Antisperm antibodies (ASA) are present in 9-36% of infertile couples, a condition called immunological infertility. The variability of ASA in terms of antigenic specificity and biological effects has made it difficult to design a test able to distinguish reliably between ASA that contribute to infertility and those that do not. To develop a reliable and reproducible method able to detect sperm antibodies, we took advantage of recent progress made in tissue engineering techniques. We used collagen gel as a bio-scaffold for the production of engineered sperm analogues. The advantages of using collagen gels include biocompatibility, ease of fabrication and low cost. We found that this tissue engineering-based assay is more specific and more sensitive than a conventional test routinely used for ASA detection. In addition, it exhibited low intra- and inter-variations. We envision the use of this novel approach for the detection of a variety of autoantibodies in autoimmune diseases. In addition to diagnostic purposes, tissue-engineering based tests could be useful in monitoring treatments with bio-drugs.
***It's probably worth mentioning that this is the first time in human history that the phrase "engineered sperm analogues" was used.
