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Scientists have questioned whether the female orgasm is a byproduct of male evolution
Last reviewed: 30.06.2025
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The female orgasm is a real headache not only for careless and inept representatives of the stronger sex. It seems to be no less of a problem, although in a different sense, to evolutionary biologists. It is a paradox, but no one knows yet what it is needed for. The quick "male" answer - "for pleasure" - is not suitable here, and here is why.
In evolution, nothing is given for free. And if we experience physiological pleasure from something, then this pleasure has a very practical justification. So, with “male pleasure” from sex, everything is simple. Its, so to speak, reliability and simplicity make a man indulge in all sexually difficult things, that is, work for the further continuation of the race. In a word, the male orgasm was really invented “for the sake of life on Earth.”
With women, it is more complicated. For starters: some primates simply do not have it (for example, female gibbons are among such unfortunates of evolution). Statistics show that every tenth woman in humans has never experienced orgasmic pleasure, and there is every reason to believe that the matter here is not only and not so much in the sexual qualifications of the partner. The growing body of data showing that the female orgasm is a very optional thing has forced biologists to reconsider previous theories on this matter.
It used to be that orgasm not only strengthened the bond between couples, but also stimulated child care, somehow improved the woman's reproductive physiology, and, yes, served as a measure of a man's skill. But if it really carried a serious evolutionary load, played a role in reproductive behavior, it would still be more "available." Besides, what would be the point of a clitoral orgasm, which can be achieved without inserting the penis into the vagina - and therefore without any fertilization? If orgasm works for sex, then sex should work for orgasm.
The doubts surrounding the female orgasm were almost resolved in a theory formulated in 2005. According to it, it was a by-product of male evolution: men got an important and useful orgasm for them, and women also got something from this evolutionary process. In the same way, men got nipples from women for company, which they don’t need: strong-sexed men don’t feed anyone with their breasts.
But, alas, this explanation was not confirmed by further research. Scientists from the University of Queensland (Australia) published an article in the journal Animal Behavior with data that refutes the theory of female orgasm as a by-product of male evolution. The researchers assessed the relationship between sexual stimulation and orgasm in several thousand pairs of twins. A total of 2,287 pairs of same-sex twins and 1,803 pairs of opposite-sex twins took part in the experiments. If female orgasm is tied to male orgasm, then opposite-sex twins should have the same “orgasmic abilities” due to the same genetic material.
The assumption was not confirmed. In pairs of same-sex twins, between brother and brother, sister and sister, there was indeed a correlation between the frequency, ease and methods of achieving the highest sexual pleasure. But there was nothing like that in opposite-sex pairs. So it is hardly possible to say that women received the ability to experience orgasm in the form of a non-functional "toy" that they got from men. On the other hand, this method of research in itself allows us to doubt the results, since it is based on the subjective feelings of the participants.
Earlier, the same scientists published a paper in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, where they reported that the ability to orgasm in women surprisingly does not correlate with a number of other important features, including such personality traits as the level of neuroticism, extroversion, impulsiveness, etc. So the female orgasm is apparently destined to confuse research minds for a long time. It is possible that this feature was extremely important in the past, but over time it lost its significance, turning into an atavism, and now women enjoy only the remnants of their former abilities.
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