Re: Evolutionary purpose of female orgasm.

Licunzhong (phcelee@leonis.nus.sg)
5 Oct 1995 06:19:59 GMT

Christine Porter (porter_c@a1.tch.harvard.edu) wrote:
: Let's not forget that simple "pleasure" may be important in motivating
: the female to mate.

: Wasn't there a recent expose' on the sex lives of Chimpanzees that
: showed the females mating with multiple males? Perhaps female orgasm
: delay, or multiple orgasms, resulted in greater likelihood of
: conception due to her seeking multiple mating parthers, or even
: multiple couplings with the same partner.

I've been lurking for a while and have been fascinated by the
remarks/discussions on this thread. I just can't help wondering if you
people are perhaps making too many assumptions about female orgasm.

Firstly, has anyone ever demonstrated that animals have orgasm? I
seriously doubt that this can be satisfactorily established. Secondly,
has there been any studies in less modern populations where female
orgasms have been demonstrable as constant feature of copulation? It
seems to me more likely that female orgasms are a fairly modern
phenomenon (Imay bewrong on this and would like to hear what other people
say) and that its pretty likely that until fairly recently, our ancestors
were quite happy to have a quicky followed by babies. I think foreplay
and female satisfaction didn't rate very high in their list of priorities.

Just my 2 cts as a non-anthropologist.