The question many people have been
begging for answers over the years on female orgasm has finally been
revealed by a team of scientists.
It’s a question which has intrigued
scientists for centuries – why do women have orgasms? But a team of Yale
researchers claim to have finally discovered the answer and it’s all to
do with ovulation.
They believe that in the past, our
female ancestors only released an egg after being stimulated by a male
just before or during s*x. This is still the case for numerous species
of mammals – including rabbits, ferrets, camels and cats.
Once stimulated, the prehistoric female
would have released certain hormones causing her to ovulate and the egg
was then fertilised by sperm. But over hundreds of thousands of years
their bodies evolved to ovulate by themselves – once a month.
This means a woman’s orgasm – famously
simulated by Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally – now has no reproductive
function, and this is what has baffled scientists.
Professor Gunter Wagner, who specialises
in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale, believes that in the past
all female mammals ovulated after having an orgasm. It was only later on
that some species – such as humans, dogs, cows and rats – evolved to
ovulate by themselves during cycles.
Professor Wagner, whose discovery is
published in the journal JEZ-Molecular and Developmental Evolution,
focused on the hormones released by different female mammals during sex.
Most release a surge of the ‘feelgood’ hormones prolactin and oxytocin
and in many cases this triggers ovulation.
This led him and his colleagues to believe that in the past, ovulation was always triggered by an orgasm.
Dr Mihaela Pavlicev of the Centre for
Prevention of Preterm Birth at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, in the
US, who was also involved in the research said: ‘We think the hormonal
surge characterises a trait that we know as female orgasm in humans.
This insight enabled us to trace the evolution of the trait across
species.
‘[Similar]
traits in different species are often difficult to identify, as they
can change substantially in the course of evolution.’ Other scientists have come up with other controversial explanations as to why women have orgasms when they perform no function.
One of the most obvious is that they simply encourage them to have more s*x, and reproduce, as it is so enjoyable.
Another theory is that they create a
stronger bond between the woman and the man, making it more likely they
will stay together and have more children.
Finally, some scientists claim it is
down to the ‘mate-choice’ hypothesis whereby females chose a mate on the
basis of sexual satisfaction. Theoretically, a male which gives them a
better orgasm has stronger sperm and will help her to produce more
offspring. The Archive of Sexual Behaviour also found in a study that
women who pretended to orgasm did so as part of a strategy of mate
retention.
The study found women who thought that their partner was likely to cheat on them were more likely to fake it.
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