Have you ever watched an episode of The Maury Povich Show that involved paternity tests? Rhetorical question, they're all about paternity tests. Anyway, at some point you probably heard this:
"Well, Maury, I know it was Ray Bob because I remember exactly six weeks earlier to the day from when my doctor said I was six weeks pregnant, Ray Bob and I didn't use any protection. I don't use protection at all, actually, because it's a sin. But Ray Bob was the only person I had sex with that week. I didn't sleep with the other three since the Friday before that. It was a party."
Call her a slut all you want, but you'd have to admit, that logic seems at least sort of valid, right? Six weeks pregnant means the guy she had sex with exactly six weeks ago is the lucky winner, simple as that. How are they ever wrong?
But Actually ...
If it were really as simple as that, Maury wouldn't even need paternity tests, just a staff full of people who can decipher hillbilly speak and count backward. But what people fail to take into account is that sperm doesn't die just because you've zipped up and moved on to the next suitor.
In truth, sperm are hardier than the fragile balls that birthed them. They can stay alive and viable for days after ejaculation, watching and waiting for their opportunity to make a happy accident. Just how long can a sperm survive in the wild and terrible world? BabyMed says five days, WebMD concurs. The Mayo Clinic allows that they can survive "perhaps even longer."
In reality, sperm have been found to survive longer than a week hiding out in the reproductive tract. If you (ladies) have sex at all in the seven days leading up to ovulation, some of that sperm could be making its way up your fallopian tubes just in time for that new egg to pop in. (Eggs "pop," right?)
What's more, at least one study has shown that sperm can keep on sperming for as long eight days and still remain viable. That means that a lag between the time when you make the biggest mistake of your life and when that mistake actually results in an unwanted pregnancy is totally possible.
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