Orgasm and evolution

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

CRers may be affected differentially for the below. If CR originates from the

fast-famine situation in evolution, behaps the below pertains.

" Links between orgasm and reproductive success are unproven—in fact, primate

research indicates that orgasm is more highly correlated with female-female

sexual

encounters than with mating. Lloyd could not find any studies on orgasm in

lesbian

sex, so I did a brief (unscientifically sound) e-mail survey. Of the ten women I

asked, five had had sex with women as well as men—four of five rated the

frequency

of achieving orgasm as higher with women, the remaining woman rated it the

same. "

Lancet, 366, Iss 9488, Sept 3-9 2005, 800

Orgasm and evolution • BOOK REVIEW

Venis

Underlying biases exist throughout science, but surely nowhere in as extreme a

form

as in research into female sexuality. The assumptions in this area boil down to

two:

female orgasm must be “for” something, and this purpose must be linked to

reproductive sex. beth Lloyd neatly dissects the history of these biases

and

their results in The Case of the Female Orgasm.

Adaptive evolutionary accounts propose that female orgasm either improves

reproductive success directly (the gruesome-sounding upsuck theory of uterine

contractions moving sperm more efficiently), or indirectly (by promoting pair

bonding—better in bed being correlated with better father material). Lloyd

prefers

the theory that since the penis and clitoris arise from the same

undifferentiated

embryological organ, women get the erectile and nervous tissue necessary for

orgasm

as a by-product of the selection pressure for the male-sperm delivery system.

As she reviews and finds wanting 21 explanations for female orgasm, Lloyd

uncovers

fascinating biases. Some adaptationists argue that the by-product account is

flawed

because, well, it rules out the adaptative explanation. And her analysis of

sexology

literature shows that only 25% of women always orgasm with intercourse; this

suggests it isn't an especially highly selected trait. Links between orgasm and

reproductive success are unproven—in fact, primate research indicates that

orgasm is

more highly correlated with female-female sexual encounters than with mating.

Lloyd

could not find any studies on orgasm in lesbian sex, so I did a brief

(unscientifically sound) e-mail survey. Of the ten women I asked, five had had

sex

with women as well as men—four of five rated the frequency of achieving orgasm

as

higher with women, the remaining woman rated it the same.

Aside from methodology, one of the biggest problems in sexology research is a

failure to define the basics—what is meant by an orgasm? Faced with explaining

why

heterosexual sex just doesn't do it as well as female-female sex for macaques,

researchers suggested that the macaques were just having “subtle, imperceptible”

orgasms. Their evidence? Human research that showed female orgasms were common

in

heterosexual sex, but just much weaker than those that resulted from

masturbation or

direct clitoral stimulation. Call it my bias, but of all the debate on what

constitutes a female orgasm—breath holding, uterine contractions, round-mouthed

frowning stare (macaques, not women), clutch reaction (both)—in human studies

you

could start with a basic premise: if she didn't notice it, it didn't happen.

beth A Lloyd

The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution

Harvard University Press (2005) ISBN 0-674-01706-4 Pp 320. $27·95.

Al Pater, PhD; email: old542000@...

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