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Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!unmvax!bbx!yenta!synth
From: synth@yenta.alb.nm.us (Synth F. Oberheim)
Newsgroups: alt.sex,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Evolution & female orgasm
Message-ID: <1991Jan21.202957.10822@yenta.alb.nm.us>
Date: 21 Jan 91 20:29:57 GMT
References: <1178@ai.cs.utexas.edu>
Organization: yenta unix pc, rio rancho, nm
Lines: 67

DISCLAIMER:  The following speculations, observations and opinions are not
intended to be sexisms or prejudices describing modern men and women and
their thoughts, attitudes, and practices, and should bloody well not be
interpreted as such.


throop@cs.utexas.edu (David Throop) writes:

>     Has women's sexual responsiveness changed since prehistoric times?
>Have our sexual practices?

I would say yes, although it's hard to make a blanket answer without 
discussing details:

>     Most women do not come to orgasm from intercourse alone.  For most
>women, intercourse must either be preceeded by or augmented by other
>clitoral stimulation.  Has it always been this way?
>     I think of cunnilingus and manual stimulation of one's partner as
>civilized acts.  I find it hard to believe that stone age people
>practiced them -- at least, I've heard no reports of these practices
>among chimpanzees. 

I seriously doubt that primitive humans practiced it ... our enjoyment 
of sex as its own entity, free and separate from reproduction, obviously
sets us apart from animals that merely have sexual stimulation as a 
motivation for reproduction, and, I would think, primitive humans.

>I don't know that anthropoligist have enquired
>about these practices among primitive cultures.

Wait a sec ... it seems you're confusing "primitive man" with "primitive
cultures" in today's world.  The latter are just as biologically matured
as the rest of us.  To think of the people in these primitive cultures
as being on a par with prehistoric humans is ... questionable.

>    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.

Human males and human females are biologically quite similiar ... as a
fetus they start out identical.  The sexual organs, in particular, simply
develop along different paths depending on which sex the baby is going to
be -- penis or clitoris, testicles or ovaries.  I think it's safe to say
that human females have always had a sexual response as long as they've
had clitorises, i.e. forever.

>     Could most prehistoric women come to orgasm from penetration alone?

Remember, in purely biological terms, the female does"{not need to have
orgasm or sexual arousal in order to conceive.  It wasn't necessary for
the female to reach an orgasm.  So, hypothetically, for countless generations
of prehistoric humankind, sexual response was rarely found in the female,
simply because it was never explored.

>And if
>prehistoric women mostly didn't have orgasm when mating, why did the
>capacity for female orgasm evolve?

It didn't biologically evolve out of nothing.  Think of it as being
dormant, but always there.

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