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| I reckon she is faking it. Yes, definitely faking it |
Why do women have orgasms? The obvious answer is: because they can. But not my wife or previous girlfriends, apparently they were/are defective in some way? Anyway, I've regressed. Seriously, it is an interesting conundrum from a biological and evolutionary perspective. The reason men have orgasms is readily explainable from an evolutionary and biological standpoint. It provides motivation to engage in an energy expensive venture. The ability to propagate the next generation is the ultimate fodder of natural selection and therefore subject to powerful evolutionary pressure. Females, as the passive vessel (feminists can fuck off), should have no such adaptive pressure- or should they? Females just need to be receptive now and again and advertise their willingness for sexual congress. Men, in general, are always receptive unless we have a headache and no painkillers are available, or unavailable.
The explanation could be down to the common 'blueprint theory'. At the early embryonic level, we are all the same. Regardless of sex, all early foetuses possess the same primordial and undifferentiated sex bits (snigger). A genetic trigger is necessary to lead the unisex ducts down a male pathway; the default setting is always, female genitalia. As mentioned earlier, the male orgasm is a powerful reward for procreation. Could it be that the female orgasm is a simple by-product? In the same way, that male nipples are non-adaptive but are present in males because we share a standard mammalian template with females? As an aside: Tis an interesting theory, but nothing is simple in biology or anything else for that matter. Although this explanation appears plausible, superficially, at least, it is unlikely to be the whole story, if at all. Any man worth his salt will have noticed a slight discrepancy between the time taken for a man and woman to achieve climax. Men are generally ‘quicker’ off the starting block. Again this makes good evolutionary sense. Imagine a time, long, long, ago, when our ancestors lived on the vast open savannah. Sex by its very nature is a highly focussed activity and whilst engaged, primitive man/hominids would be uniquely vulnerable to wolves or sabre-toothed ferrets (surely some mistake?). Selection for fast copulation makes sound evolutionary sense. But why the male/female discrepancy when it comes to orgasm? Of course, the orgasm in females is divorced from the fertilisation process. That said, it has been argued that the rhythmic contractions accompanying orgasm help to scoop the sperm into the cervix thus facilitating conception. However, I don’t recall any hard evidence supporting this proposal. The fact that women take longer to, and often fail to climax, during sex suggests that the female orgasm is non-adaptive; makes my head hurt and my loins ache (wanna burns stuff as well).
Often the respective theories are conflicting. Males built for quick sex because of natural selection; women built for a slow build up. Contradictions in logic are irreconcilable; something has to give.
Some advocate that it is an advantage for a male to be a sensitive lover and take heed of his partner's needs. A selection of anthropologists (not natural) consider that mutual orgasm helps to bond the male and female for the long haul. In evolutionary terms, this is important because the human infant requires many years of nurturing before it can become independent. In a tough uncaring world, two parents are definitely better than one. But this hypothesis does not abide well with the adaptive value of 'quicky sex'. I'm reflecting on a time in our prehistory when evolutionary pressures were rampant and adaptively important. In our wondrous modern society, natural selection has been well and truly pushed into the background and nowadays a leisurely afternoon of 'Tantric Sex' can be fun. One parent families thrive because society, as a functioning economical unit, supports the indolent, feckless, fecund. What would happen if we pushed them out onto the raw streets and watched natural selection operate in all its feral and insouciant glory/gory? Now, that would make a great reality TV show; I'd watch it.
There is another explanation: we simply don’t know. Us, O so clever scientists are not omniscient, although I've met a few who think they are. Primary research in this fascinating area has been woefully neglected. You would think the government should be supplying ample funding under the auspices of the: ‘Terminally unattractive cropped hair dungaree wearing disabled lesbian mother, fund’. There is nothing wrong in formulating hypotheses, but if the hypothesis aspires to become a theory it requires evidence. Few of the explanations concerning the female orgasm have supporting data. It looks as if we are engaged in story telling, after all. Nothing wrong with that, as long as we recognise it as such.
Perhaps as researchers, men should try harder?
