Is there a function that a female orgasm performs? Does it serve any purpose other than to just feel amazing? I was just thinking about it and I really can't put my finger on why it happens. Maybe as a kick to ensure human reproduction? I know I can't live without it, but what does it really do?
Female Orgasm?
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restless_bob
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I think that nature wants us to fuck. And then it wants us to be all relaxed and stay horizontal to give the sperm time to find the egg and all that... Nature wants both males and females to love sex, not just for the sex itself, but so that we'll stay together, have relationships, and keep coming back for more....
If I remember my anatomy lessons right the female orgasm makes the vaginal walls contract to help direct and propel sperm towards the cervix. The cervix itself actually flexes toward the vaginal walls to some degree to improve the chances of the sperm finding their way in.
CWatson
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Scientists have been wondering this for a while. They're still not sure.
The most prominent theory (probably because it seems the most logical) is that vaginal contractions cause the cervix to dip down into the pool of semen, thus promoting fertility. The only problem with this is that, once they got the right instruments in the right place, they found out that it flat-out doesn't happen.
One person has argued that having an orgasm during intercourse causes cervical defenses to weaken, thus promoting fertility, whereas an orgasm during foreplay causes the opposite to happen. Supposedly, this is because orgasm during intercourse, or rather the ability of a man to create one, is a positive survival trait and one which women / Mother Nature wants to select for. (I'm not sure who believes this theory besides Robin Baker, who authored it in the book Sperm Wars; this book deals primarily with pre-civilized and pre-monogamous Homo sapiens, where women would try to collect sperm from many different men.)
Finally, some argue that the female orgasm is vestigial. They argue that, if female orgasm were meant to be important, the clitoris wouldn't be across the room from the vagina, orgasm would more clearly cause increases in fertility (it doesn't seem to), and that orgasm would promote interest in sex--which it doesn't. Regardless of what we erotic-fiction authors would have you believe, there is no correlation between 1) whether a woman can have orgasms and 2) whether she has a developed sex drive. (Obviously, the females in our audience tend to have both qualities; but the females in our audience may also be a minority representation of women as a whole.)
(This is all drawing from The Other Wiki, by the way.)
The one thing none of these people have talked about is the psychological and emotional aspects of orgasm. Evidently, no psychologist has run a survey or experiment on this. Having said that, as a psych major, I can't think of a question about female orgasm that could be asked in a scientific manner. "Does having an orgasm from your partner make you feel... Closer to that partner? More bonded? More emotional?" I mean, what do you put there? (As a virgin who has experienced a grand total of two blowjobs in my life, I'm not even sure I can answer that question.)
So, there's all the current research and theory in a nutshell. Which, of course, makes it nuts.
The most prominent theory (probably because it seems the most logical) is that vaginal contractions cause the cervix to dip down into the pool of semen, thus promoting fertility. The only problem with this is that, once they got the right instruments in the right place, they found out that it flat-out doesn't happen.
One person has argued that having an orgasm during intercourse causes cervical defenses to weaken, thus promoting fertility, whereas an orgasm during foreplay causes the opposite to happen. Supposedly, this is because orgasm during intercourse, or rather the ability of a man to create one, is a positive survival trait and one which women / Mother Nature wants to select for. (I'm not sure who believes this theory besides Robin Baker, who authored it in the book Sperm Wars; this book deals primarily with pre-civilized and pre-monogamous Homo sapiens, where women would try to collect sperm from many different men.)
Finally, some argue that the female orgasm is vestigial. They argue that, if female orgasm were meant to be important, the clitoris wouldn't be across the room from the vagina, orgasm would more clearly cause increases in fertility (it doesn't seem to), and that orgasm would promote interest in sex--which it doesn't. Regardless of what we erotic-fiction authors would have you believe, there is no correlation between 1) whether a woman can have orgasms and 2) whether she has a developed sex drive. (Obviously, the females in our audience tend to have both qualities; but the females in our audience may also be a minority representation of women as a whole.)
(This is all drawing from The Other Wiki, by the way.)
The one thing none of these people have talked about is the psychological and emotional aspects of orgasm. Evidently, no psychologist has run a survey or experiment on this. Having said that, as a psych major, I can't think of a question about female orgasm that could be asked in a scientific manner. "Does having an orgasm from your partner make you feel... Closer to that partner? More bonded? More emotional?" I mean, what do you put there? (As a virgin who has experienced a grand total of two blowjobs in my life, I'm not even sure I can answer that question.)
So, there's all the current research and theory in a nutshell. Which, of course, makes it nuts.
restless_bob
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All I know is being with a woman while she's having an orgasm is an INCREDIBLE turn-on!!
CanisLupus
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Just yesterday I watched a show on TV from BBC: They put a couple into a MRT and had them stay still (while he was inside her) for about 12-15 minutes. Apart from the fact that it was cool of him to stay hard and inside her during all that time they got some (scientifically) very interesting new images.
Later on they put a camera inside her vagina and on his member and filmed what happened during intercourse. When SHE had an orgasm the cervix dipped down into her vagina rhytmically. The scientists think that this 'dipping' might help the sperms to be literally sucked into the womb. Thus an orgasm of the woman after he has ejaculated might really increase the chances of the woman getting pregnant.
So...I think that nature had its reasons to give human femals the ability to have an orgasm.
btw: Dolphins are the only other 'animals' to have sex just for fun
Greetings,
CanisLupus
Later on they put a camera inside her vagina and on his member and filmed what happened during intercourse. When SHE had an orgasm the cervix dipped down into her vagina rhytmically. The scientists think that this 'dipping' might help the sperms to be literally sucked into the womb. Thus an orgasm of the woman after he has ejaculated might really increase the chances of the woman getting pregnant.
So...I think that nature had its reasons to give human femals the ability to have an orgasm.
btw: Dolphins are the only other 'animals' to have sex just for fun
Greetings,
CanisLupus
sunandshadow
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There's not solid evidence that female orgasm increases the chance of getting pregnant, but in pigs it's conclusively demonstrated - when the female orgasms it strongly sucks sperm up into the uterus and sows which are artificially inseminated have more piglets if they orgasm during the process.
rosco rathbone
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An irelevant spasm.
Mr.G
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Ms WATSON
covered ALL the bases IMHO. And yes they have video of the mouth of the cervix dipping down and LOOKING like it was sipping sperm. Of course that comes from a NON- G or A Spot orgasm. Those orgasms are push OUT muscle spasms NOT suck IN so that mechanism is different. They produce oxytocin too but if the sex researchers can't "explain" the suck IN (normal) orgasms they must be tearing their hair out trying to figure the cause of G and A Gasms.
covered ALL the bases IMHO. And yes they have video of the mouth of the cervix dipping down and LOOKING like it was sipping sperm. Of course that comes from a NON- G or A Spot orgasm. Those orgasms are push OUT muscle spasms NOT suck IN so that mechanism is different. They produce oxytocin too but if the sex researchers can't "explain" the suck IN (normal) orgasms they must be tearing their hair out trying to figure the cause of G and A Gasms.
CWatson
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Also, just as a point of order, one needs to be careful when dealing with anecdotal evidence. This is one of the reasons there has been no psychological research into what function, if any, female orgasm plays: there's nothing scientific to be measured.
Back at the dawn of the 20th century, psychology was split into two camps: Structuralism and Functionalism. Structuralists preferred to carry out experiments of introspection: they would sit there and think about how they thought. Functionalists, on the other hand, were much more behaviorist, and believed that psychology should only bother with things that were directly measurable and observable. Because this approach is more practical, it won. But the downside is that, if you go to 100 women and ask them how they feel about having orgasms, you are using a Structuralist method and it doesn't really count. To matter in psychology, you need to be able to show a link between action and reaction: "[IF] a woman receives an orgasm from her partner, [then] she is more likely to [perform a certain action]." And what action would that be? "Give her partner a blowjob"? What if she's a lesbian? "Bake her partner cookies"? There are many reasons why cookies would be an inappropriate response for that particular couple: maybe one of them's diabetic; maybe she can't bake; maybe they're out of flour. "Smile"? Sure, I suppose, but that would be hell on wheels to measure.
The point is--and I realize how ironic this sounds, believe me--psychology does not believe that human recollection is trustworthy. "I'm pretty sure that's what I did" isn't enough. You have to be able to show, scientifically and objectively, that not only did you do that, but when put in a similar situation, a "statistically significant" number of subjects did the same thing. Because psychologists work with such fuzzy data, they're absolutely fanatic about maintaining scientific standards in their experiments.
It's even worse when it comes to sex research, because the simple fact is, not all people respond the same, and not all people are built the same. Some have larger breasts, or more sensitive breasts, or smaller penes, or more sensitive penes. Scientists at Rutgers University documented a guy having multiple orgasms, but that's all they saw--one guy. Likewise, the whole G-spot thing is shaky; the medical community has not decided whether this location actually exists, and, if so, why some women just flat-out don't seem to have one... despite having researched the topic since '81 (longer than some of us have been alive). At the moment, what we have on the G-spot amounts to anecdotal evidence... and, as Structuralism reminds us, anecdotal evidence doesn't count. Not in science.
Does this mean you oughtn't explore? Of course not! That's part of the fun of having a lover: the exploring. All it means is to take everything with a grain of salt. What works on one lover will not necessarily work on the next. Be wary of any third party who tells you it will.
Back at the dawn of the 20th century, psychology was split into two camps: Structuralism and Functionalism. Structuralists preferred to carry out experiments of introspection: they would sit there and think about how they thought. Functionalists, on the other hand, were much more behaviorist, and believed that psychology should only bother with things that were directly measurable and observable. Because this approach is more practical, it won. But the downside is that, if you go to 100 women and ask them how they feel about having orgasms, you are using a Structuralist method and it doesn't really count. To matter in psychology, you need to be able to show a link between action and reaction: "[IF] a woman receives an orgasm from her partner, [then] she is more likely to [perform a certain action]." And what action would that be? "Give her partner a blowjob"? What if she's a lesbian? "Bake her partner cookies"? There are many reasons why cookies would be an inappropriate response for that particular couple: maybe one of them's diabetic; maybe she can't bake; maybe they're out of flour. "Smile"? Sure, I suppose, but that would be hell on wheels to measure.
The point is--and I realize how ironic this sounds, believe me--psychology does not believe that human recollection is trustworthy. "I'm pretty sure that's what I did" isn't enough. You have to be able to show, scientifically and objectively, that not only did you do that, but when put in a similar situation, a "statistically significant" number of subjects did the same thing. Because psychologists work with such fuzzy data, they're absolutely fanatic about maintaining scientific standards in their experiments.
It's even worse when it comes to sex research, because the simple fact is, not all people respond the same, and not all people are built the same. Some have larger breasts, or more sensitive breasts, or smaller penes, or more sensitive penes. Scientists at Rutgers University documented a guy having multiple orgasms, but that's all they saw--one guy. Likewise, the whole G-spot thing is shaky; the medical community has not decided whether this location actually exists, and, if so, why some women just flat-out don't seem to have one... despite having researched the topic since '81 (longer than some of us have been alive). At the moment, what we have on the G-spot amounts to anecdotal evidence... and, as Structuralism reminds us, anecdotal evidence doesn't count. Not in science.
Does this mean you oughtn't explore? Of course not! That's part of the fun of having a lover: the exploring. All it means is to take everything with a grain of salt. What works on one lover will not necessarily work on the next. Be wary of any third party who tells you it will.
emap
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Dang ya'll are forgetting the one basic premise of figuring stuff out, start with the simple and work up. 
So let's put it this way, if you have two guys to sleep with, one never gives you an orgasm, the other one gives you tons of orgasms, which do you want to sleep with?
Now personally I would so go with the second guy, I don't really care if he's not cute or anything we are talking sex, not living together. See that is the reason for female orgasms, so we want sex, we want guys to pay attention to us and give us orgasms. Partly because it has side effects, namely if he pays enough attention to give us an orgasm he is going to pay attention enough to protect us from predators instead of protecting his own ass. It also feels really good so we want to do it more often, which is where fertility comes into play, most women don't know when they are.
If you don't track the calender and know you are fertile about two weeks after your period you would never know when you are or not. Which means wanting sex alot increases the odds of pregnancy. Males want sex all the time, females determine when they can have it, not many animals want sex as often as people, there is one species of monkey, well apparently dolphins as well.
Our orgasms have a few purposes, get us to spread our legs, get us to stay near certain men that will protect us, in theory at least and get us to want to spread our legs more often. Personally I'm just really really glad I can have orgasms.
So let's put it this way, if you have two guys to sleep with, one never gives you an orgasm, the other one gives you tons of orgasms, which do you want to sleep with?
Now personally I would so go with the second guy, I don't really care if he's not cute or anything we are talking sex, not living together. See that is the reason for female orgasms, so we want sex, we want guys to pay attention to us and give us orgasms. Partly because it has side effects, namely if he pays enough attention to give us an orgasm he is going to pay attention enough to protect us from predators instead of protecting his own ass. It also feels really good so we want to do it more often, which is where fertility comes into play, most women don't know when they are.
If you don't track the calender and know you are fertile about two weeks after your period you would never know when you are or not. Which means wanting sex alot increases the odds of pregnancy. Males want sex all the time, females determine when they can have it, not many animals want sex as often as people, there is one species of monkey, well apparently dolphins as well.
Our orgasms have a few purposes, get us to spread our legs, get us to stay near certain men that will protect us, in theory at least and get us to want to spread our legs more often. Personally I'm just really really glad I can have orgasms.
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infinity706
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Well, except your theory leaves out all the poor women that sit there waiting around on their husband to get in the mood so they can get some of that sex they've been wanting all week. From what I've heard, there's too many guys out there that are happy to settle for once a week or less, and won't put out during period week.Dang ya'll are forgetting the one basic premise of figuring stuff out, start with the simple and work up.
So let's put it this way, if you have two guys to sleep with, one never gives you an orgasm, the other one gives you tons of orgasms, which do you want to sleep with?
Now personally I would so go with the second guy, I don't really care if he's not cute or anything we are talking sex, not living together. See that is the reason for female orgasms, so we want sex, we want guys to pay attention to us and give us orgasms. Partly because it has side effects, namely if he pays enough attention to give us an orgasm he is going to pay attention enough to protect us from predators instead of protecting his own ass. It also feels really good so we want to do it more often, which is where fertility comes into play, most women don't know when they are.
If you don't track the calender and know you are fertile about two weeks after your period you would never know when you are or not. Which means wanting sex alot increases the odds of pregnancy. Males want sex all the time, females determine when they can have it, not many animals want sex as often as people, there is one species of monkey, well apparently dolphins as well.
Our orgasms have a few purposes, get us to spread our legs, get us to stay near certain men that will protect us, in theory at least and get us to want to spread our legs more often. Personally I'm just really really glad I can have orgasms.
emap
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No actually I didn't, what I said was the reason us gals can have orgasms. In other animals the female goes into heat and can't help but let the male hop on. Humans don't have that particular trait so us gals have to want sex, the only reason to want sex if you are not overridingly driven to it is enjoyment.
Now women stay with guys who only want it sometimes because life is easier, you don't have to fight for each bite. His protective qualities are not important and we can decide if he is good enough despite probably not enough sex.
Besides you forget not all of us gals want sex every day, for every guy that only wants it every saturday there is a woman who only wants it every saturday.
Now women stay with guys who only want it sometimes because life is easier, you don't have to fight for each bite. His protective qualities are not important and we can decide if he is good enough despite probably not enough sex.
Besides you forget not all of us gals want sex every day, for every guy that only wants it every saturday there is a woman who only wants it every saturday.
NippleMuncher
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btw: Dolphins are the only other 'animals' to have sex just for fun
Not true. The bonobo chimpanzee also engages in recreational sex.
http://www.blockbonobofoundation.org/
infinity706
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It would be nice if the low sex drive women could get matched up with the low sex drive guys, though.No actually I didn't, what I said was the reason us gals can have orgasms. In other animals the female goes into heat and can't help but let the male hop on. Humans don't have that particular trait so us gals have to want sex, the only reason to want sex if you are not overridingly driven to it is enjoyment.
Now women stay with guys who only want it sometimes because life is easier, you don't have to fight for each bite. His protective qualities are not important and we can decide if he is good enough despite probably not enough sex.
Besides you forget not all of us gals want sex every day, for every guy that only wants it every saturday there is a woman who only wants it every saturday.
jadefirefly
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True true. I think a more accurate statement is that dolphins are the only non-primates to engage in recreational sex.
I'm pretty sure I heard something once about a particular type of goose or duck doing something odd along those lines, but I forget what it was. :/
rosco rathbone
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Especially in the early evolutionary stages, when males needed to ejaculate as quickly as possible in order to avoid predators. Ever watch a video of monkeys fucking? The male is upright, alert, looking in all directions the whole time.I think the main problem with the cervix dipping in sperm theory is that the likelihood of getting an orgasm after he's done is rather minimal for a large percentage of women
infinity706
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I guess that depends on whether said guy likes creampies, though. That tends to lead to much post orgasm lickingI think the main problem with the cervix dipping in sperm theory is that the likelihood of getting an orgasm after he's done is rather minimal for a large percentage of women
I think it's just there to increase our interest in sex - something we need to keep the species going. There's a lot of hoo-ha (I think Michael Odent writes on it) about orgasms being pain relief during labour but that is veeeery subjective. You certainly couldn't use that technique universally.
Where did I read this recently? On here I think; a man takes around two minutes of intercourse to orgasm (on average), a woman at least ten. Men peak at 19, women in their thirties. Mother Nature is, as we say in Britain, 'avin a laaarf.
CWatson
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Yes, but also encourages semen to flow in the opposite direction of the uterus, thus impeding fertilization and helping to guarantee that this guy's habits don't get passed on to the next generation.
NippleMuncher
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Even though the wild is fraught with some seriously violent sex practices, there are probably many species that engage in sex for enjoyment. It is the limited perception of the human psyche that defines these events within the confines of a restricted point of view. There are also those that would perceive humans as being at the top of the food chain, yet left to their own devices, the average human is quit defenseless of the average predator, animal or human alike.
Oh, like us guys don't have enough to worry about without Mother Nature laughing at us too!
Personally, knowing my limitations, I make sure the Mrs. gets her cookie before I get mine. Thankfully we aren't trying to ensure the proliferation of the human race. Damn it! I hate it when that happens!
CWatson
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Hmm. That is a very good question. Does the male ability to give his partner orgasms correlate with other useful traits? I wonder if anyone has done any research into this.
pinkflames
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I reckon we orgasm so we're too laid back and content to eat our partner for dinner.
satindesire
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I've noticed in my own experience that the lovers I've had, that were the most concerned about my pleasure, were also concerned the most about my welfare...both physical and emotional.
I've seen that TYPICALLY (not saying this is ALL men), men that want to make sure that their female partners are having satisfying, orgasmic sex typically make the best partners...and funnily enough, the best husbands, and best fathers.
I believe that is why the female orgasm is still relevant in today's modern human woman. It's not a physical "switch" for procreation, it's SOCIAL. The fact that we CAN orgasm is due to the fact that the men who care enough to give us orgasms are, to an evolutionary standpoint, going to make the most suitable providers.
I'd say that makes a lot of sense to me.
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