What Use Is The Female Orgasm? - David Puts

... why is it necessary to have an orgasm? Why would selection have favored having an orgasm sometimes and not others? Why does it happen so infrequently? We measured several variables related to the masculinity and dominance of their partner, including taking photos of the guys and measuring objectively how male typical the face was, how masculine it was or how feminine it was. Having those faces rated by unfamiliar people. We found that those things correlated pretty well and that women whose partners were more masculine, that those women took less time to have an orgasm during sex and more likely to have an orgasm.

David, I want- I wanna talk about the female orgasm. I feel like that's what everybody's come to hear us talk about. The female orgasm, a massive mystery. You've done some really, really interesting work on it. W- why does the female orgasm exist? What's the, what's the function of it?

That's a great question. Um, and I would say, uh, it's about 10% of the research that we do in my lab, but about 90% of the interviews that I do are (laughs) about- and, you know, I guess I should start by saying we don't know. Um, eh, i- but if I had to sort of put my money on a hypothesis, it would be that it functions in mate choice, and, um, and, you know, whether- and it- that could be in a couple of ways. I mean, it could be that it functions to, um, to choose mates of high genetic quality that will make females' offspring healthier and, um, and more fit themselves, or it could be that it functions to choose, um, long-term investing partners, or it could be some of both. I mean, there's some evidence that, um, that orgasm increases the probability of conception, um, and so, you know, it makes sense then that... I mean, it could be for ei- either function. It- you know, if, if mate- if orgasm functions to choose males of high genetic quality, then it would make a special sense- especially sense that, um, it would be more likely, um, to increase the probability of fertilization, but, um, but, you know, there's also lots of evidence that when women feel closer to their partners and have an emotional connection, that orgasm is more likely as well. So, um, I could talk about some of the evidence that, you know, sort of bears on this, but, um, I guess- well, maybe I, maybe I'll stop there, or maybe (laughs) I, I could, I could actually- maybe I'll, I'll say how I got into this, um, which was I always sort of, you know, appreciated it as an interesting intellectual question, and I understood that, um, some evolutionary biologists, uh, you know, thought that it was likely an adaptation, and it makes sense that, you know, it might be. It's something that, uh, is so intimately connected to reproductive behaviors that it seems unlikely to be selectively neutral, you know, to have- ha-have been, um, irrelevant to our ancestors' reproductive success. Um, but then, you know, it's something that males are much more likely to have an orgasm when they have sex and some women have never had an orgasm, and there's not some kind of smoking gun evidence for its function, that there are plenty of other evolutionary biologists who say, no, it's, it's not an adaptation, it's just a sort of a happy coincidence, and that it's really a byproduct of selection favoring orgasm in males, that- and i- in the same way that males have nipples because of selection on females, female mammals, some female mammals, they have nipples, that selection on males to have orgasms has produced a similar trait. So- a- and, and, uh, in females. And so, you know, I appreciated that question, and then, uh, I guess about 15 years ago or so, I was asked to review a book on the topic, um, and I thought- for, for a journal, for Archives of Sexual Behavior. And I thought, okay, a great chance for me to get into the literature a little bit, read a, read a, a book that reviews the literature and, uh, and also have a publication. I was a postdoc at the time, and I- you know, the more publications, the better, I thought at the time. And, um, I- the book sort of took a strong, uh- it- ostensibly, it was, um, sort of more neutral, but I came away- y- y- it's- anyone reading the book comes away thinking that the author really supports the byproduct hypothesis, that orgasm is not functional in human females. And I came away from the book feeling that the author was more likely to be wrong, um, than when I started the book. You know, that it just seemed to me that, you know, you could pick away at any bit of evidence and say, "Well, it's an imperfect study. This doesn't show for sure." But every bit seems to support the hypothesis that, that women's orgasm functions in choosing mates, um, and that it's unlikely to be simply a byproduct, that, you know, it should be reduced, for example. But byproducts, like, men are bigger, but their nipples are smaller, because when, when selection doesn't favor a trait, um, and- it favors it in one sex and not in the other, then it tends to be vestigial or rudimentary in the sex where it's, uh, not an adaptation. And if you think about the sort of phenomenology of female orgasm, if anything, it's bigger than it is in males, less frequent, but that could be e- it makes complete sense if it's, um, functions in choosiness.