An image has been circulating of conservative dehumidifier Ben Shapiro discussing “the myth of the female orgasm” with Jordan Peterson. The cringey quotes in the caption from Peterson don’t feel too off-brand. There’s even a video somewhere. So people have shared the thing, made tiktoks about the thing, tweeted (xeeted whatever fuck you Elon) viral memes about the thing.
It pains me to tell you.
The image was a fake shared on reddit for the first time in December of 2021. A 30 second clip appeared online of their “discussion” the next day, and it’s not even trying to be a good fake.
Neither Shapiro or Peterson have said bupkis about this. But I’m not expecting either of them to devote a moment of their time to letting the world know they accept the science of the female orgasm. Speaking of.
Today’s Moment of Science…
Ahem.
Today’s Moment of Science… … …
(I’m… not… there yet….)
The idea that it’s abnormal for women to have a vigorous yet anti-climactic pounding has long been dispelled. Most orgasms are achieved via external stimulation, clitorally if you will. If you are one of the lucky ones who gets off from a good jack hammering, that’s some combination of clitoral stimulation, a bit of nailing the G-spot, and just being plain old fucking lucky.
Why limit ourselves though? Throughout the species, there are probably about as many ways to orgasm as there are erogenous zones in and on a woman’s body.
We all understand the reasons for- and have gone to great lengths to protect ourselves from- the male orgasm. But other than the fact that it certainly feels kinda nice, is there a biological reason for the female orgasm? When a process requires this much time and energy, it’s often because it held purpose at some point in our evolution.
There are a lot of hypotheses and bits of evidence here and there to support them. A long standing one is that cervicouterine contractions help with sperm transport. This is also known as the ‘upsuck’ mechanism. Which was not a word I expected to write today. Indeed, it can facilitate tadpole squad transport when partners orgasm together. However, a higher rate of female orgasms hasn’t been quite so easily tied to having more babies. So any uterine hoovering effect may be incidental.
A 2016 paper in the Journal of Experimental Zoology examined the hormones that are released during orgasm and ovulation. Some critters ovulate on a set schedule. Others experience induced ovulation when their ovaries hear a chord of happy hormones ringing out that shit’s about to get messy.
Human females ovulate on a regular-ish schedule, going into heat and howling at the full moon about once a month or so. But the lovely chemicals we release during an orgasm? We fit the profile of those ‘torpedoes are firing, operation egg drop is a go’ animals.
Perhaps before our evolutionary branch was a twig, a female needed to have an orgasm or an egg wouldn’t show up to fertilize. Over the ages things changed and shifted, but the orgasm remained. If this study’s proposal is correct, the female orgasm is as vestigial as the appendix.
Or maybe it’s still useful for the ‘upsuck’ thing.
We really don’t know, but it’s an interesting new hypothesis.
“Vestigial” or not, you’d do best not to neglect this evolutionary quirk, though some people suggest that orgasms are not the goal for women. Those people are assholes and you shouldn’t fuck them. From survey data, it seems the best indicator of sexual satisfaction from any given encounter is an orgasm. There’s even data suggesting that it’s used in selecting a partner.
Which goes back to an earlier point; maybe it just exists because it feels nice.
This has been your Moment of Science, feeling a little anti-climactic but I’ll get there later.
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