to generally recognised effects upon the eyes of sexual indulgence and to practices which imply that seed comes from liquid in the region of the eyes." this may be explained by the belief of the pythagoreans that "semen is a drop of the brain ." greek stoic philosophy conceived of the logos spermatikos ("seminal word") as the principle of active reason that fecundated passive matter. the jewish philosopher philo similarly spoke in sexual terms of the logos as the masculine principle of reason that sowed seeds of virtue in the feminine soul. the christian platonist clement of alexandria likened the logos to physical blood as the "substance of the soul", and noted that some held "that the animal semen is substantially foam of its blood". clement reflected an early christian view that "the seed ought not be wasted nor scattered thoughtlessly nor sown in a way it cannot grow." women were believed to have their own version, which was stored in the womb and released during climax. retention was believed to cause female hysteria. in ancient greek religion as a whole, semen is considered a form of miasma, and ritual purification was to be practised after its discharge. reverence in some pre-industrial societies, semen and other body fluids were revered because they were believed to be magical. blood is an example of such a fluid, but semen was also widely believed to be of supernatural origin and effect and was, as a result, considered holy or sacred. the ancient sumerians believed that semen was "a divine substance, endowed on humanity by enki", the god of water.: 28 the semen of a god was believed to have magical generative powers.: 49 in sumerian mythology, when enki's seed was planted in the ground, it caused the spontaneous growth of eight previously-nonexistent plants.: 49 enki was believed to have created the tigris and euphrates rivers by masturbating and ejaculating into their empty riverbeds.: 32, 49 the sumerians believed that rain was the semen of the sky-god an, which fell from the heavens to inseminate his consort, the earth-goddess ki, causing her to give birth to all the plants of the earth. dew was once thought to be a sort of rain that fertilized the earth and, in time, became a metaphor for semen. the bible employs the term "dew" in this sense in such verses as song of solomon 5:2 and psalm 110:3, declaring, in the latter verse, for example, that the people should follow only a king who was virile enough to be full of the "dew" of youth. the orchid's twin bulbs were thought to resemble the testicles, which is the etymology of the disease orchiditis. there was an ancient roman belief that the flower sprang from the spilled semen of copulating satyrs. in a number of mythologies around the world, semen is often considered analogous to breast milk. in the traditions of bali, it is considered to be the returning or refunding of the milk of the mother in an alimentary metaphor. the wife feeds her husband who returns to her his semen, the milk of human kindness, as it were. espionage semen stain on carpet observed with and without ultraviolet light when the british secret intelligence service discovered that semen made a good invisible ink, sir george mansfield smith-cumming noted of his agents that "every man (is) his own stylo". ingestion spiritual the borborites, also known as the phibionites, were an early christian gnostic sect during the late fourth century ad whose alleged practices involving sacred semen are described by the early christian heretic-hunter epiphanius of salamis in his panarion. epiphanius claims that the borborites had a sacred text called the greater questions of mary, which contained an episode in which, during a post-resurrection appearance, jesus took mary magdalene to the top of a mountain, where he pulled a woman out of his side and engaged in sexual intercourse with her. then, upon ejaculating, jesus drank his own semen and told mary, "thus we must do, that we may live." upon hearing this, mary instantly fainted, to which jesus responded by helping her up and telling her, "o thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" this story was supposedly the basis for the borborite eucharist ritual, in which they allegedly engaged in orgies and drank semen and menstrual blood as the "body and blood of christ" respectively. bart d. ehrman, a scholar of early christianity, casts doubt on the accuracy of epiphanius's summary, commenting that "the details of epiphanius's description sound very much like what you can find in the ancient rumor mill about secret societies in the ancient world". in some cultures, semen is considered to have special properties associated with masculinity. several tribes of papua new guinea, including the sambia and the etoro, believe that semen promotes sexual maturation among the younger men of their tribe. to them, semen possesses the manly nature of the tribal elders, and in order to pass down their authority and powers, younger men of their next generation must fellate their elders and ingest their semen. prepubescent and postpubescent males are required to engage in this practice. this act may also be associated with the culturally active homosexuality throughout these and other tribes. semen ingestion has had central importance in some cultures around the world. in baruya culture, there is a secret ritual in which boys give fellatio to young males and drink their semen, to "re-engender themselves before marriage". sexual there are several sexual practices involving the ingestion of semen, which may be done with one or more partners. practices involving the oral intake of semen include: cum swapping, in which a woman passes semen from her mouth into that of another woman. felching is a sexual practice involving the act of sucking semen out of the anus of one's partner. according to the entry for "felch" in the oxford english dictionary, the earliest occurrence of the word in print appears to have been in the argot of the homosexual subculture by ronald a. farrell in 1972, although this usage was as a synonym for anilingus. gokkun (ごっくん) is a japanese term for sexual activity in which a person, usually a woman, consumes the semen of one or more men, often from some kind of container. "gokkun" can also refer to the sexual act of swallowing semen after performing fellatio or participating in a bukkake. the word "gokkun" is onomatopoetic, and translates roughly as the english word "gulp", the sound made by swallowing. snowballing or snowdropping is the sexual practice in which one person takes someone's semen into their mouth and then passes it to the mouth of another, usually through kissing. the term was originally used only by gay and bisexual men. researchers who surveyed over 1,200 gay or bisexual men at new york lgbt community events in 2004 found that around 20% said they had engaged in snowballing at least once. in heterosexual couples, a woman who has performed fellatio may afterwards return the semen to her partner's mouth, mixed with saliva; the couple or other partners may then exchange the fluid several times, causing its volume to increase (hence "snowballing"). woman consuming large quantity of semen, an act known as gokkun in japanese sexual slang illustration of snowballing euphemisms a huge variety of euphemisms and dysphemisms have been invented to describe semen. for a complete list of terms, see sexual slang. slang terms for semen include cum, jizz, spunk (primarily british english), spooge and/or splooge, load, nut, seed, and love juice. the term cum can also refer to an orgasm (when used as a verb rather than as a noun), while load is derived from the phrase blowing a load, referring to an ejaculation. the term nut originally refers to the testicles, but can be used to refer both semen and ejaculation.