Have you ever wondered about the purpose of the female orgasm? You’re probably thinking, “Duh, it’s for sexual pleasure and intimacy. Obviously.” Which is true, but have you ever thought about it from a biological standpoint?
For men, we know that male ejaculation is tied to reproduction and the passing on of genes. For women, however, that is not the case. Currently, we know that women don’t need to have an orgasm to conceive. And we also know that a woman doesn’t necessarily orgasm every time she has sex. Therefore, the reason why women orgasm, biologically speaking, has been a long-standing mystery to biologists for years. One emerging theory, however, might explain the reason why.
According to the New York Time’s coverage of “The Evolutionary Origin of the Female Orgasm,” published in The Journal of Experimental Zoology, evolutionary biologist, Dr. Mihaela Pavlicev of University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and Yale University colleague, Dr. Günter P. Wagner, have been studying female animals for months in order to explain the mystery.
By studying what happens when other female animals mate, these two scientists have been able to bring forward new possible conclusions of why women have orgasms.
As the New York Times article explains, most female mammals release the hormones oxytocin and prolactin while mating. These are the same hormones that female humans release during orgasms. However, the key difference between the two is that the majority of other female animals release an egg after mating, while women do not. “While women release an egg each month, other female mammals, such as rabbits and camels, release an egg only after mating with a male,” The New York Times explains.
As we know, women automatically release an egg once a month, whether mating occurs or not. But as Dr. Pavlicev and Dr. Wagner uncovered, ovulatory cycles have been evolving for quite some time. This evolutionary occurrence happens “in only a few lineages of mammals, including our own.” This means that, while today, a woman’s ovulation isn’t triggered by intercourse with a male, at one point it was.
Therefore, Dr. Pavlicev and Dr. Wagner argue that the original purpose of the human female orgasm was for conception. They claim the clitoris was once inside the vagina, thus allowing it to send signals to the brain once the female climaxed during intercourse. The signals would trigger hormones that released an egg, ultimately resulting in pregnancy.
According to the study, this “arrangement” worked well for mammals that rarely encountered males because it helped “females make the most of each mating.” However, as time continued, some mammals (especially primates like us) began spending more time in social groups and having more sex with males. Thus, as The New York Times writes, the “orgasm as an ovulatory mechanism was no longer so useful.” Eventually, the clitoris moved its way to the outside of the vagina and lost its purpose in reproduction.
Science Mag, however, points out that other research strongly criticizes this new explanation for the female orgasm. For instance, two behavioral neuroendocrinologists, Michael Baum from Boston University and Kim Wallen from Emory University in Atlanta, feel that the data used to support the Dr. Pavlicev and Dr. Wagner’s hypothesis is not very convincing. Elisabeth Lloyd, philosopher of science at Indiana University, also said that the new research does not look “to see whether there are also parallels in the neurological components of these activities.”
But despite these critiques, Dr. Pavlicev and Dr. Wagner do agree that more research need to be done to strengthen the theory. The truth is that the reason for the clitoris moving outside of the vagina is not known. As Dr. Wagner states, “Basically, we don’t know why this happened, [but across mammalian species] it’s just a very strong evolutionary pattern.”
While this new theory may not be conclusive or resolve the entire mystery behind female orgasms, Dr. Wagner argues that understanding the history of a woman’s reproductive system is crucial to understanding women’s health.
