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From: ronald@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Ronald A. Amundson)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Evolution & female orgasm
Message-ID: <11024@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Date: 21 Jan 91 19:59:31 GMT
References: <1178@ai.cs.utexas.edu> <1991Jan21.170936.10578@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>
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In article <1991Jan21.170936.10578@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> rpetsche@mrg.CWRU.EDU (rolfe g petschek) writes:
>In article <1178@ai.cs.utexas.edu> throop@cs.utexas.edu (David Throop) writes:
>>
>>    But it seems really odd to think that women would have evolved a
>>physiological capacity for orgasm, but have evolved it in such a way
>>that it couldn't be triggered (except rarely) by practices that didn't
>>arise until the advent of civilization.
>
>Well, this could be an 'accident', like the Panda's Thumb, (a book by
>Jay Gould which I recommend you read).  However I do not support this
>idea, despite the fact that the clitoris is what, in a man develops into
>the penis.
>--
>Rolfe G. Petschek			Petschek@cwru.bitnet

It wouldn't be a "panda's thumb", which is itself an evolved
adaptation (just not a thumb).  But Gould has given a non-adaptational
hypothesis addressing this issue in one of his _Natural History_
essays, (sorry I don't have the reference close at hand) and it sounds
like the one Rolfe rejects.

Gould suggests, on the basis of the developmental homology of the
clitoris and penis, that the female orgasm is a developmental
byproduct of the evolution of the male orgasm.  Male nipples are the
same kind of thing.  This would explain the anatomical arrangement
which seems so "inefficient" when we assume that female orgasm is an
adaptation to encourage intercourse: female orgasm isn't as efficient
a consequence of intercourse as is male orgasm, simply because it's
male ejaculation which makes the babies.  (Together with lots of
female physiology, of course.)  

Gould didn't mention (as I recall) one other point possibly explained
by his hypothesis.  It is widely reported that orgasm is _less_
crucial to a female's enjoyment of sex than it is to a male's
enjoyment of sex; females seem to have a richer non-orgasmic sexual
experience.  If this is true (maybe it isn't) it is accounted for by
the evolutionary need for females to _want_ sex, but the lack of an
evolutionary need for them to undergo orgasm, which was (on this
hypothesis) evolved as an experiential accompaniment of ejaculation. 

Needless to say, Gould was criticized for undervaluing female
experience as compared with male experience.  This sort of criticism
comes from not understanding the non-adaptationist approach to
explaining biological traits.  Gould was careful to distinguish the
current _importance_ of a trait from that trait's evolutionary
_origin_.  Female orgasm is an important part of human experience (and
non-human experience as well; see S. B. Hrdy, _The Woman that Never
Evolved_).  This does not imply that it evolved _in order to achieve_
that importance.  Our hearing abilities were certainly not evolved in
order for us to appreciate classical symphonies; nonetheless the
experience of listening to classical symphonies is an important part
of the lives of many people.

Ron Amundson