The second to last chapter is a juicy one, primarily for the extensive coverage of issues surrounding the female orgasm. See my extensive coverage of all the chapters of
this interesting book here.
Chapter Eleven: Women's Hidden Sexual StrategiesThis intriguingly-titled chapter is not one of those "Ten Secrets of Seduction That Really Work" Cosmo articles. It's deeper, but less practical, than that. As Buss overdramatically states about women:
Hidden within their bodies, concealed within their minds, reside bewildering intricacies of sexuality that cry out for understanding. Some strategies remain secret for an excellent evolutionary reason--they cannot be implemented successfully if their true design is revealed.
Whoa! It's like, they're there, but they're not there if you look for them! Like the
Vaginaberg Uncertainty Principle! Or perhaps not.
At any rate, there are four aspects of the human female that seem mysterious, in genetic, evolutionary terms. What function do they serve? Why have they persisted for millions of years of evolution, when they are not obviously (to Buss, at least) explained by physical function? 1) Female orgasm, 2) women having affairs, 3) are female sexual strategies linked to their menstrual cycle, and 4) can men detect when women are ovulating? Okay, that last one doesn't seem to have much to do with women's sexual secret, it's more about men wanting to have sex even more than usual at some special time of the month. Don’t complain to me though, it's not my list. I'm just reviewing this thing.
Let's start, unlike virtually every romantic encounter in the history of our species, with the female orgasm.
Is Female Sexual Orgasm an Adaptation? Buss is very honest and unscientific in this chapter, and he repeatedly allows his male interests and confusions to the fore. How's this for a quote rich in personal angst, "Women's sexual orgasm has puzzled, frightened, delighted, disturbed and mystified men for centuries." Why is the physical function of a woman's orgasm is so amazing to so many male doctors? Buss includes several quotes from women describing the sensation of an orgasm; they've got all of those "waves of pleasure" and "uncontrollable contractions" and such, but um... so? That's what men feel too, it's just that the male orgasm is much easier to instigate and so easily quantified by ejaculation. I guess it's the lack of a clear, obvious, undeniable feature, such as ejaculation, that makes the female orgasm seem so mysterious? That and the fact that most women fake a lot more of them than they actually experience.
Surveys have returned very different numbers on that issue, to no one's surprise. Buss cites one "fairly typical study," which says 15% of women always had an orgasm from intercourse, 48% usually, 19% sometimes, 11% occasionally, and 7% never. He says other studies came up with equivalent numbers, which surprises me, since every woman I've talked to about this issue has been in the 11% camp, or 19% at best. I'd add that one was in the 7% before me, but that would sound like bragging, even if I admitted that I only moved her up to the 19% range. At best.
In one of the biggest failings in the entire book, the obvious follow up question is not addressed. Why weren't the women asked how often they faked their orgasm? Why wasn't that same question put to the husbands/bfs of those women? In my experience, from talking to a fair number of women about this topic, they all admitted to faking almost every time, and they all said their BFs at the time were utterly convinced by their acting. So while I think these 15/48/19/11/7 figures are exponentially high, I'd bet most guys would be like, "Wow, that's funny. Every woman I've ever been with has been in the 15% group. I guess I'm just that good."
I agree with Buss that there's a huge mystery about female orgasm, but we disagree on what the mystery is. I think the mystery is how men can continue to believe she's not faking that display of moaning and panting, when it comes after 5 minutes of fellatio-centered foreplay, and maybe 3 minutes of desperate thrusting. I'm not exactly volunteering for this, but I think every relationship would be much improved by one mandatory session with a strap on, shortly after sexual intercourse commences. The woman could hump away at the guy for a few minutes, then grunt some, take the Lord's name in vain a few times, and ask, "Was it good for you?"
When the man stammered out an incredulous, "Um... not really." the woman could say, "Well, keep that in mind next time you're on top." What the man chose to do with that bit of insight would be up to him, but at least he'd have received one hard lesson in reality, upon which to base (or not) his future behavior and beliefs.
You could object and say that men don't enjoy butt sex, and make analogies to prison, etc, but you'd be full of shit. Literally as well as metaphorically. Plenty of men do, not just gay men, and prison rape isn't comparable, since, duh, it's rape. No one's suggesting female sexual response from rape be weighted evenly with orgasm frequency from consensual intercourse in the context of a loving relationship. After all, I sincerely doubt many women are polite enough to fake orgasm for the benefit of their rapist, though you never know; old habits might die hard.
Buss isn't as proactive in his suggestions, and after his absurd survey figures, he moves into the evolution discussion.
One leading theory is that unlike the obvious function of the male orgasm, the female doesn't actually have a purpose. It's not necessary for conception, and in fact female orgasm is like the male nipple; functionless, but still there because it's essential in the other gender. Steven J. Gould is quoted on this one. Gould said that males and females are not separate entities, but, "...are variants upon a single ground plan, elaborated later in embryology." Points in his argument:
- There's no compelling evidence that non-human female primates experience orgasm during intercourse, although they do have the capacity for orgasm from clitoral stimulation.
- Female orgasm is unnecessary for conception.
- Female orgasm is highly variable between women, and even in the same woman depending on her partner.
- Female orgasm is entirely unknown in some cultures.
There's a quote of a ethnographic survey to back that last one up. :
In most societies for which there are data, it is reported that men take the initiative, and without extended foreplay, proceed vigorously toward climax without much regard for achieving synchrony with the woman's orgasm. Again and again, there are reports that coitus is primarily complete in terms of the man's passions and pleasures, with scant attention paid to the woman's response. If women do experience orgasm, they do so passively.
Fortunately, men in America in this day and age have moved far beyond that style of sex. Right, ladies?
Buss presents this argument, then immediately undermines it by citing more recent medical data that indicates that female stumptail macaque monkeys do appear to achieve orgasm during intercourse. He also cites some anthropological studies of other tribal cultures in which women insist upon longer duration of intercourse, and seem to require that the man satisfy them before he is finished. So the question is still open to discussion, apparently.
Five Possible Functions of Female Orgasm Various popular hypotheses to suggest why women have orgasms, in evolutionary, biological terms.
- The hedonic hypothesis. Orgasm makes sex more fun, so women are therefore more likely to engage in it, leading to more reproduction.
- The Mr. Right hypothesis suggests that orgasm serves as a mate selection device. A man who shows he is sensitive to her needs is advertising his suitability as a mate. Amusingly, this one has received some empirical support by large-scale surveys, but not as proposed. Instead, it seems that women might be more likely to cheat when they're not getting orgasms from their husband. The causality is in question though; do happier marriages lead to more orgasms and less cheating, or vice versa?
- The paternity confidence hypothesis says that women display orgasm to their partner to make him feel he's keeping her satisfied and that she's not straying. Given how men feel about infidelity, this seems a reasonable theory. It also ties in nicely with the fact that most women fake orgasm; it's not just a sop to fragile male ego. Well, it is, but fragile male ego in this case stems directly from male biological worries about
- The paternity confusion hypothesis makes no sense to me. It states that women have orgasms to give them incentive to have sex with more men, thus making many men unsure if the baby might be theirs, and thus making them more likely to assist her and less likely to kill the baby that might be their son/daughter. Huh? This seems to go opposite to all else we know about women not wanting to suggest infidelity, so it seems like a bullshit theory to me, and according to Buss, the female anthropologist who originally suggested it has backed away from it in more recent work. I guess he included it since five is more than four?
- The sperm retention hypothesis states that the cervix dips lower when women have orgasms, thus making fertilization more likely. Possible, but dubious, given that humans have no problem reproducing when there's no female orgasm involved.
In other interesting female orgasm news; female Japanese macaque monkeys are more orgasmic with higher ranking males, regardless of the duration of intercourse. This was especially true when low ranking females mated with high ranking males. Seems to mesh with human studies, in which women find sex more enjoyable with more desirable men. It's almost as if our mental state and psychology ties into our sexual enjoyment? Wow, what won't science prove next.
Physical attraction matters too; women married to more physically attractive men (as determined by outsider observers) reported more orgasmic sex lives. Again, the direction of causality is in question, though. More attractive men might be better lovers, either from confidence or greater experience.
Buss' ultimate summation is that the Mr. Right theory is most likely, but in an odd way. Women are more orgasmic when they're cheating, they're more likely to cheat when they are ovulating, and they tend to cheat with men who are more attractive than their husbands. It's therefore suggested that female orgasm probably originated as a by-product, as Gould suggests. But it's been modified by evolution to determine with who, and when, women conceive.
He ends the section by finally getting to the question I was waiting for. What about male adaptations to female orgasm? If the female orgasm is such a potent aspect of conception, why haven't men evolved better ability to trigger it, more ability to withhold their own orgasm until the female's hits, the ability to ejaculate just after a female orgasm (the best time for conception), and a better ability to detect fake orgasms? As Buss says, there's "no evidence for these hypothesized co-evolved adaptations." Further study is needed, obviously.
Why Do Women Have Affairs? It's obvious why men do, genetically speaking. And men do it more often, but women do it too, even though there's no obvious genetic reason for it. Why?
Nearly all men have sexual fantasies about someone other than their current partner, but women aren't far behind; upwards of 80% report this, in most studies, and around 34% of women's erotic daydreams feature someone other than their partner. This matters too; all men frequently fantasize about other women, but cheaters and non-cheaters are nearly identical in their fantasy frequency. However, women who fantasize about other men are much more likely to cheat (53% of cheating women vs. 30% of non-cheaters). Again, there's the causation vexation; do women who are unsatisfied fantasize about another man since that's what they want, or do women who fantasize about another man talk themselves into cheating?
The biological issue remains as well. Men who cheat have a clear opportunity to increase their reproduction rate. Women can only have one baby at a time, so it's not a question of more for them, but of with whom. Also, women incur substantial risks through infidelity. As previous chapters discussed, men rate their partner's infidelity as the single most upsetting thing she can do. Women who cheat risk their marriages, their male support, their reputations, their future value on the dating market, contracting STDs, and more. All of which makes the question more pertinent. Why do women cheat, when there is so much risk and seemingly so little possible gain?
The
good genes hypothesis is one commonly argued. It's worth the risk of being caught cheating by a husband in order to be impregnated by a man with superior genetics. Low status women are able to cheat on their husbands by mating with higher status men they could not hope to marry, and studies, as well as your usual
Maury Show paternity test, indicate that they often do. Extensive studies into paternity are not often conducted, since most people simply do not want to know, but the few tests that have gone on and been published indicate a cuckoldry rate of around 10%, worldwide. A large study in Monterey, Mexico found 12% of children were not their father's. Buss mentions a colleague who, while researching breast cancer and genetics in the US, found a 10% cuckoldry rate. So yes, about 10% of the people reading this have a cheating mother, and an unknown father. Be interesting if, in the future as genetic mapping becomes more common, it becomes routine for people to find out for certain if they really are the product of their mom and dad. The whole world will become one big Maury Show!
Buss concludes this section with several pages of survey results, mostly concerning women's hypothetical interest in cheating, or their hypothetical benefits from it. Most involve boredom, or a way to get more sexual pleasure or boost their self esteem. Women who aren't happy with their partner are more likely to cheat, which seems to tie into the "testing their value on the dating market" or "searching for a new partner" theories. Common sense, really.
He gets to some answers about why women cheat later in the chapter. But first...
Do Women's Menstrual Cycles Influence Sexual Strategies? Yes. Studies of women with regular 28-day cycles show their desire increasing steadily until ovulation, on the 14th day, and then decreasing as they approached menstruation. This despite the fact that other studies show that women don't consciously know when they're ovulating.
Another study had women fill out questionnaires about their sexual desires and appetites. The women were much more likely to experience sexual fantasies, especially about other men, when ovulating. Much more interestingly, another study had women rate the type of male face they were most attracted to at different times during their cycle. On average, more masculine, rugged faces were rated highest during ovulation, and more feminine, boy band type faces were rated highest during non-fertile times of the month.
The logic of this is not that ovulating women want to fuck lumberjacks, (well, they do, but there's more to it than that) but that high levels of testosterone yield masculine features, and that only boys who are very healthy during adolescence can produce such high testosterone, thus showing, like a peacock's tail, that they're genetically very fit. So, when women want to get pregnant they want manly men, but they want less macho men for long term partners, probably since experience or instinct tells them that very macho men make poor mates since they cheat constantly. "Women judge the less masculine faces, preferred during their least fertile days of the month, as a signal of cooperativeness, honesty, and good parenting qualities."
Buss seems to be stretching the conclusion here a bit, and other studies have not replicated the same degree of preference for girly men during low fertile times of the month. However, numerous studies have found that women prefer more masculine faces while ovulating.
Can Men Detect When Women Ovulate? Apparently not. Many studies have searched for evidence of that, and most theorists expect that men should have evolved this ability, but there's no evidence for it. This is especially odd when humans are compared to other animals and primates, since most of those animals only mate when the females are ovulating, and in most cases it's very obvious when the females are in season.
Scientists are still studying it though, and there have been some positive results. Men seem to find female body odor more intriguing when the woman is ovulating, as judged by men sniffing the t-shirts study subjects had worn during different times of the month. Women's skin color changes slightly when they're ovulating as well, since the skin becomes "vascularized, more suffused with blood in a way that corresponds to what men subjectively experience as a woman appearing to 'glow.'"
Women behave differently too; observations and studies of women in singles bars demonstrates that they are more forward, touch men more often, wear more revealing clothing, etc, when they are ovulating. This runs us into the causation issue again, since maybe men can tell women are ovulating, or maybe women just feel "sexier" then, so behave in ways that men notice. It also appears that men become more protective and guarding of their mates when they're ovulating, though the evidence for this is largely anecdotal.
Buss theorizes that we'll know far more about this in a decade, since many studies are underway on the issue. Scientists are looking for more indirect evidence; do men become more sexually insistent when their partners are ovulating? Do women who are cheating become especially good at deceiving or avoiding their mates? Do men feel more loving at that time? Do men feel less loving or more insecure when she's not ovulating? All good topics for study, and one can sense Buss planning a new edition to his book every few years from here on out.
Next time, the final chapter. Mysteries of Human Mating.
Labels: sex, the evolution of desire
