Posted on 06/08/2005 3:40:51 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
A woman's genetic make-up accounts for at least a third of her ability to climax during sex, say researchers, and may even account for as much as 60%.
Further investigations into the genetic differences that influence orgasms in women could help produce drugs to treat female sexual dysfunction, they say.
Relatively little is known about the female orgasm, the peak of sexual excitement normally marked by vaginal contractions. "It's a taboo subject," explains Tim Spector, who directs the Twin Research Unit at St Thomas' Hospital, London, and co-authored the report.
Women do not need to climax in order to conceive and give birth, a fact that makes the evolutionary cause of their orgasm slightly mysterious. In contrast, men who cannot orgasm miss the chance to pass on their genes and fall victim to natural selection.
So what function does the female orgasm serve? As well as making women more interested in the activity of procreation, recent investigations have found the contractions it involves can bring sperm closer to the egg, increasing the chance of conception.
Evolutionary psychologists have also suggested that the female orgasm might help women to select caring partners: those who are particularly attentive in the bedroom may also be more supportive in other aspects of life.
Twin peaks
To find out which factors most affect a woman's ability to climax, Spector and his colleagues sent a questionnaire to more than 4,000 female twins to complete anonymously. Recipients included nearly 700 pairs of identical twins, who share the same DNA.
The researchers asked how often the women climaxed during sex. Only 14% of the women reported always achieving an orgasm. At the other end of the spectrum, 16% of them said they never reach orgasm or are unsure about whether they do or not.
As in other studies of twins, the scientists assume that twins share similar family environments. The overall difference between trends in identical twins and fraternal twins is thus attributed to genetic influences. The analysis suggests that genes explain at least 34% of the probability that a woman orgasms during sex. When it came to masturbation, this number climbed to 45%, the researchers report in Biology Letters1.
This number could go even higher, they add, if one could account for other variables, such as the different techniques of the women's partners. Genetic influences have been seen to account for as much as 60% of variability in other complex traits, such as obesity.
Pleasure in a pill
The number of genes that influence the female orgasm remains unknown. But researchers reason that comparing the DNA of women who always orgasm with that of those who never do could shed light on the biological pathway behind the process. Drugs could then be developed to target the most influential genes or gene products in this pathway.
Medications for male erectile problems, such as Pfizer's Viagra (sildenafil citrate), have already given men more options, says London-based relationship therapist Ruth Mitchell. But she says women lack a similarly popular and effective treatment.
Even with the promise of drugs, Mitchell cautions that many factors besides biology affect the ability to orgasm. "There's such a huge impact from conditioning and expectation," she says.
Oh, and since you brought up pain meds during delivery...
I know a woman who has had 6 children all without any. She actually liked being pregnant and said it was a constant state of arousal and orgasms were better then.
She also breast fed all of them. They are the healthiest and smartest kids you would ever meet and she says it is because she breast fed them and didn't use drugs...
Not all women in the world deliver babies like pampered American princesses.
So, if you think for one second by your comment you can exhibit an air of superiority because of estrogen...
Strange? Why, I find it downright kinky!
A compound made from Unobtainium.....
"Miss, please push the call button, don't yank my BLANK."
I love Match Game reruns. Long live Game Show Network!
Hmm, my wife always sneezes loudly in groups of three...
I was also thinking of your post 72:
To be serious about this article, it is not mentioned that a man can have an ejaculation not involving an orgasm, so IMHO this article is not very scientific at all.Millions of women are happy today that they're making some progress in figuring out why it's so hard for us to reach orgasm, and you seem resentful or threatened by it. I just think that's rather strange.It is a fixation on sex, an idolatry, a fertility cult that has nothing to do with being fertile...
ping
Sorry, I can't marry all of them...
Do you agree that his observation is accurate?
The "traditional" strategy you decry wasn't there because of some fantasy "misogynistic" oppression in history concocted by the female grievance industry, but was a rational and successful reproductive strategy based on the technological and social environments of the times.
One word - bonobos Okay, but we aren't bonobos, nitwit. The manner that they integrate sex into their lives developed as a result of their social structure, and is used for everything from greetings to conflict resolution. So unless you are saying that when you are introduced to a client, you have sex with him as a way of saying "hello", or have a little girl-on-girl action with your secretary when you have a fight, the fact that bonobos live in a promiscuous society is totally irrelevant to the issue of reproductive strategies of human females, because they exist in a completely different society.
Imagine if human females liked to have sex with a lot of males (no!), and nobody knew for sure who the father was (double no!). She'd probably have the most sex with the hottest guys, but "marry" the guy who would make the best husband and/or father.
Yeah, except what would the motive be for this man to "marry" the promiscuous woman? None. Why would this man limit his reproductive opportunities by raising someone else's child when he could just have sex with her and "marry" a female with whom he was sure was bearing his children. If he were a "good husband and/or father," that would make his genes desirable, so he could have his wife at home and the "loose" girl in the city. Best of both worlds, no?
So, the ability to have an orgasm gets the hot ladies into bed at an earlier age, and keeps them looking for hot sex their whole lives.
Except that these "hot" ladies will be a hell of a lot less "hot" when they are dragging around another man's child and fighting to feed the both of them without help. So they could not pair bond with high-status males because the high-status males wouldn't want them. ("High status" doesn't mean cars and tuition, it mean the ability to command the resources in the society--something requiring physical attributes as well as mental attributes. In pre-technological societies, it meant access to food resources and reproductive opportunities, often based on mastering the hierarchy in the group.) The males would have sex with them as a reproductive opportunity, but they wouldn't aid the females in raising offspring because they could not tell if they were theirs, so their time would be better spent, from a reproductive standpoint, either trying to impregnate other women, or aiding a woman to raise a child which he knew was his own.
As a result, the females would have to raise her children on their own, with fewer resources. This would lead to increased mortality and a decrease in the propagation of the female's genes.
Unrestrained female sexuality is dangerous to the guy whose only lure for women is dishwashers and cars and college tuition -- in other words, material goodies, or what you call "high status."
"Dangerous" Oh, Christ, not this shit again. There's that feminist ideological bullshit oozing out... Unrestrained female sexuality isn't "dangerous," to males, you idiot. Unrestrained female sexuality is desirable for males. Females who are willing to have sex often and with many different males are highly valued by males. The males have sex with them and then leave. They won't "marry" them, of course. The male would rather have sex with them and pair bond with a woman whose children he knows is his own.
Unrestrained female sexuality is dangerous in pre-technological societies, but to females. It limits their opportunity to pair bond with a male and forces her to do twice the work in raising her children. This makes her more susceptible to illness and "wear and tear" and makes her less physically attractive, reducing further her chances of forming a successful pair bond.
Maybe they can't have several hundred kids, but neither can the bald-headed pot-bellied dork males, and neither can the non-orgasmic females.
This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Have you lived under a rock your whole life? Ever hear of the expression "trophy wife"? There are limitless examples in history and present of physically less-attractive but high-status males reproducing with physically superior females. Donald Trump is their friggin' poster boy. I mean, how many fifty-nine-year-olds with bad comb-overs do you know that beds a string of young actresses and Eastern European supermodels?
He is nothing more than the "bald-headed pot-bellied dork male" transforming his status into reproductive opportunities with females which, absent his status, he would have no chance of getting. [This also presents the female with the opportunity to adopt a cheating strategy with otherwise low-status, but physically superior males. (Which we still see as the bored housewife of rich corporate executive bumping uglies with Carlos, the pool boy.) But that's for another post.]
As for non-orgasmic women, there is no physical need for a woman to have an orgasm in order to reproduce. As I said in my initial post, I think the increased fertilization rate that female orgasm can produce is probably driving it as a secondary adaptation. But as an physical matter, it is unnecessary.
So just one or two more children over a few million years means they're reproducing sooner, more, and later than the non-orgasmic females.
No, it means they are reproducing earlier, but less successfully, by having fewer children live to reproductive age, as a result of doing so with fewer resources.
Good thing you put the insult in the first sentence, so I won't waste my time reading any of the rest of it.
Suit yourself. Your refusal to learn is up to you. Every village needs its idiot.
I thought it was a truly bizarre post, myself, but this topic seems to trigger, er, stimulate, no, um provoke, bizarre behavior in men.
Because, as Sally showed Harry, most men have to take women's words for what they're feeling and many women think they have good reasons to lie. And thus, many men are in the truly bizarre position of thinking, that, being male, THEY know best about everything, including what makes their female partner happiest, but even they know this could not possibly be true.
Cognitive dissonance is very disorienting. Makes people do very weird things.
LOL! It was the "bald-headed, pot-bellied dork" comment that ticked you off, right? Don't worry, I can't see you through the computer screen.
Ha! No, it was your pathetic "just because a woman is promiscuous doesn't mean she's a slut" tone. Anyone who's grown up listing to old baby-boomer women justify their past misbehavior using feminist claptrap, simply because reality simply doesn't fit their libertine ideology, gets to know the tone.
I wasn't talking about you or me, nor anybody you went to college with.
I was talking about survival strategies evolved over billions of years by billions of semi-human and human animals, each seeking their own reproductive niche.
The fact that you think that there is ONE strategy that works for every female indicates that you are ignorant, and the fact that you're nasty about it indicates that you're irredeemably ignorant.
Have a nice day.
Don't get me in the middle of this one. I just post the stuff.
No, you weren't. You talked about human women and bonobos. You never mentioned "semi-human animals" (whatever they are). As for human "reproductive niches," there is no evidence anywhere of any wide-spread successful human female reproductive strategy which entails female promiscuity. None.
There IS a bunch of feminist bullshit that said that women are naturally as promiscuous as men, but that mean old misogyny and male hierarchical dominance forced them to be unnaturally hesitant about expressing their "true sexuality." Why is this bullshit? Because prior to modern technology and the welfare state, the societal structure which is natural for humans had no way to make a "promiscuous female" reproductive strategy successful given the demands of human child-rearing, for all the reasons I've previously discussed.
Moreover, even though this strategy has been modified to meet differing circumstances (for example in permitting the growth of polygamous cultures), as a general matter, the strategy followed by most human woman has been to secure as good a mate as you can to aid in raising your offspring, and to remain faithful except in very limited circumstances. It thrives because it is successful, given human biology and social structures.
The fact that you think that there is ONE strategy that works for every female indicates that you are ignorant, and the fact that you're nasty about it indicates that you're irredeemably ignorant.
That a natural, successful, female reproductive strategy for humans exists is a fact, whether you want to believe it or not. Further, I never said that every female follows this pattern. Obviously they do not, and no reasonable person could have read that into what I wrote.
The fact that I am "nasty," as you put it, does not show ignorance, but shows that I am impatient with those who put political ideology ahead of fact and logic.
Hoo boy. You really are irredeemably ignorant. I could suggest you do a little research (google female promiscuity evolution) before you embarrass yourself like this in public anymore, but I fear it's hopeless.
You'll just start ranting about feminists and loose womyn and other evil females in your mental parade of horribles. ;^D
I gotta run but will give this a try just for laughs -- now, think a minute.
Female monogamy is in the best interests of males. Men have no way of knowing who is the actual father of a woman's child, at least not until DNA testing. Rather than waste their resources on another male's child, males have developed a number of strategies, all of which are designed to ensure that the female doesn't fool him into raising another man's child.
Now, be logical. Why would it be in a female's best interest to adopt the male's strategy? What do females have to gain by limiting sexual congress to only one male?
Reassuring the male ego is the only possible answer, and she can do that about as well by fooling him.
That's why so-called monogamous animals, whether they be humans or geese, have a 10% to 50% rate of having offspring by other than their so-called monogamous mate.
You can blame feminists for this, if it makes you feel better, but facts are facts.
If you're worried, DNA testing is pretty inexpensive these days. ;^)
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