Truthfully, I was trying to see if any local spas were offering Norwegian company Bioforskning's facial treatment with their product, Spermine. It is touted in magazines and blogs as a revolutionary facial treatment that uses sperm and lasers to induce a more youthful appearance. I'd read journalist Marty Beckerman's recent article "Spermboarded" where he -- a straight male -- goes to a New York spa for a sperm facial. When he announced his plans to his girlfriend, he claims she "offered to receive a Spermine facial beside me for emotional support." His reaction? "No, I don't want that on your face," He screamed. "From anyone else, I mean."

He'd apparently read the New York Magazine blip about the new beauty treatment. Okay, maybe it's not so new. But two NYC spas offer the treatment (Townhouse Spa: $250 and Graceful Services: $125) and I wanted to know if Spermine had yet made a splash on the Barbary Coast.

Beckerman was unable to get his very entertaining article published. Maybe the inclusion of a YouTube video demonstrating the procedure hampered his offerings on an already-delicate subject. Though Beckerman was not naive about the outrageousness of his own situation, nor immune to the irony that it was self-induced. He wrote,

As promised Anna slathers Spermine all over my face; it doesn't smell like semen, so that's nice.

"My parents will be so proud of me when they see this," I predict.

"Great!" Anna says sincerely. "Probably they would like to come here too!"

"Yeah," I say, "I'll buy them... uh... well... Father's Day is coming up."

She tells me all the "benefits" of this treatment: "It has a lot of vitamins... it's hydrating... exfoliating, relaxing and improves circulation... it prevents the skin from sun damage, discoloration..."

"I should be memorizing this," I say. "I've tried to talk so many girls into doing this, and they were all disgusted..."

She runs a red laser over the Spermine to "press the product" into my skin.

"What was your name again?" I ask. "I should probably know it as long as you're sperming on my face... I always feel bad when I don't catch their names."

She applies a chamomile mask infused with more Spermine. Hallelujah!

"Chamomile tea and sperm?" I ask. "I'll have to try that in a cup sometime... cum-o-mile tea?"

Apparently I need ChapStick because she rubs the Spermine on my lips.

"Don't think of it like sperm," Anna says. "This is antioxidants."

"I just got antioxidants in my mouth," I observe.

Take my advice and don't Google for "sperm facials" in San Francisco. While I always have something NSFW on my laptop screen, I realized mid-search that it seemed the thing I kind of didn't want my boyfriend walking in and discovering me Googling for. He might become concerned about the relationship, in a 'why buy the bull when you can get the facial for free' kind of way. When he found out, he was concerned. But not for the reasons I'd thought. "You should really call around and find out if it's real sperm," he told me. "I mean, I'd hate for you to look silly." Yeah, we can't have that, I thought, looking at my search history. He added, "You should ask if you can bring your own." "That's enough help," I replied.

Other men I talked to were perplexed by sperm facials. Not the mechanics, but the concept as a signifier of cultural shift; changing attitudes about sexuality. One friend told me, "I am confused by the very idea of sperm facials. Back in '86 in Santa Cruz, a guy walking down the street even THINKING about coming on a woman's face could find his head exploding from a .50 BMG round fired by the psychic mind-reading feminist snipers hiding out in the clock tower. I saw it happen more than once."

While some wonder who would pay for such a treatment (aside from the very young-looking Mr. Beckerman), others wonder how, and from whom, the Fountain of Youth is sourced. My initial guess is that Spermine is delivered fresh from the spigot by Daniel Craig, Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, and George Clooney. Now that's a facial I'd pay for.

I renewed my online research, imagining Mary Roach writing her science book about sex, "Bonk". When I kept mistyping Spermine, my Santa Cruz friend told me to think of baseball scores and/or Woody Allen because that might slow me down, help me achieve my goal. If I were Mary Roach, I'd be visiting the place where Spermine is manufactured, interviewing pale Norwegians about the science of youth and beauty, then suiting up in gloves, thigh boots, and a Hazmat costume to view the labs. I imagined the Bioforskning labs to be teeming with tall, strong, buxom blonde women in white uniforms hovering over microscopes before returning to the Sample Area with clipboard in hand, ready to perform whatever procedure was necessary to get the proprietary ingredients from the (no doubt) fresh-from-the-gym celebrity subjects. I knew it was a long way away from the pig insemination chapter in Bonk.

It had to be.

Turns out, I may be right. Though it's not as exciting as imagining the process, not by a long, um, shot. I hate to be the one to tell you the Easter Bunny is a myth (don't tell The Sisters!) or that Santa doesn't really exist -- it seems that the special sauce in Spermine isn't very saucy.

In the manufacturer leads, Bioforskning AS assures us that after "25 years of research" scientific documentation shows Spermine is able to "delay aging by 25%", that it's "more than 25 times stronger than vitamin E" and "is the most efficient antioxidant against aging" among other things. But in fact, at base, spermine is a polyamine compound -- originally found in human sperm, it is being synthesized in laboratories such as Bioforskning's.

It's imitation bukkake, my friends.

But I say, let those crazy, straight, boy bloggers live the dream, even if just for a moment.

Violet Blue is author and editor of nearly two dozen sexual health books and erotica collections. She is a professional sex educator, lecturer, podcaster, blogger, vlogger, porn/erotica reviewer and machine artist. She has written for outlets ranging from Forbes.com to O, The Oprah Magazine.

Violet is also a fetish model, an art machines expert, a Laughing Squid guest blogger, GETV reporter, SF Appeal staffer, sexy food blogger at BrokeAss Gourmet, fun to follow on Twitter, a San Francisco native and a Forbes Web Celeb. Her tech site is Techyum; her audio and e-books are at Digita Publications.

For more information and links to Web sites discussed in Open Source Sex, go to Violet Blue's Web site, tinynibbles.com.