A work in progress

The Evolution of Human Female Sexuality
by Edwin L. Young, PhD
September 30, 2009

Consider the likelihood that evolution shaped female sexuality for at least the last seven million years. Many aspects of the natural world, the human manner of existence, and the interaction between the two must have been changing over those millions of years. It seems likely that evolution moves at a very slow pace. The transition from apes to hominids to Homo sapiens was slow. With changes in living conditions, both males and females were repeatedly shaped to adapt to those changes. I am focusing here on the outcome of millions of years of evolution as evidenced in the sexuality of the human female. For example, why do you think evolution equipped women with an external clitoris? Very few animal species have an external clitoris. In some animal species, the female possesses an internal clitoris. While the external clitoris was evolving, a rudiment in the form of a G-spot could have remained where the internal clitoris once was.

The female hyena is unique for possessing a pseudo-penis. Hyena females live in exclusively female groups. They leave the group to mate with a male for reproduction but otherwise they are able to satisfy their sex drive among themselves. As opposed to most animal species, human females also tend toward exclusively female groups. Human males tend to do so as well. Is this a cultural or genetic phenomenon?

The human female’s sexuality is variegated. Women have an internal G-spot that can add to their sexual pleasure when have intercourse and most women are capable of having vaginal orgasms but are not limited to that. However, why do women have anal orgasms? Why can women have orgasms from having their breasts sucked? Can women lactate even without having recently given birth? Why do women have a proclivity for sucking? Is that limited to females? Are lips erotic organs? Why is a woman’s skin eroticized? Why can women have multiple orgasms without needing a period of recovery as do men? Why do girls have a hymen? Why do humans reach puberty around the age of thirteen and yet the age of onset can vary dramatically with life circumstances? Are children capable of erotic pleasure? Do children have a natural sexual curiosity? Can pre-pubescent children have orgasms? Is there a genetically based taboo against incest? Is heterosexuality a genetic predisposition? Is monogamy natural, or genetically programmed, for humans? On the other hand, is promiscuity the natural behavior of humans? Is the nuclear family a natural condition or pattern for humans? In primitive tribes, even today, children seem to belong to all of the women in the tribe. Did the earliest humans have any concept of biological parentage? Do women have a genetically based drive for reproduction? Do men have a genetically based drive for reproduction? Why are there such dramatic changes in the sexual physiology of women over their lifetime?

Are the sexual, as well as all other, behavioral patterns of modern America and the rest of the modern world a basis for defining the basic, universal, nature of human males and females? Why are patterns of sexual behavior remarkably different for different cultures and for different periods of recorded history? Can a genetic basis for human behavioral tendencies can be determined that is independent of different cultures’ patterns of shaping behavior?

Have the contemporarily defined physiological and cultural attributes of women and women been true for them since the beginning of human evolution? If human sexual anatomy and sexual characteristics are unique among animal species, then you have to wonder how and why they evolved in this unique manner?

What must life have been like for women as they transitioned from hominids to Homo sapiens? Why did primates transition into anthropoids and hominids and finally into Homo sapiens? What happened to pave the way for the descent from trees, the loss of tails, the upright posture, the diminished amount of hair, the propensity of females for artificial decoration of their faces, and the adaptation to smoke?

I am a 76-year-old male retired psychologist.　 I dealt with both genders for over forty years.　 The number of people I dealt with in private practice, institutions, schools, and universities is unrecorded but I can estimate it to be many thousands.　 Early on, I began to form the opinion that the human being is extraordinarily plastic, capable of being and behaving in a vast variety of different ways.　 I inferred from observations of people over decades that most remained rather constant over time but that these were people who remained in the same or similar environments.　 Of those whose environments changed dramatically, their way of　being and behaving also changed dramatically and for those who did not change with the changed environment their tenure in the change was short-lived.　 Reflecting on my many encounters with people who confided in me about their sexual behavior and preferences, I concluded that the human has the potential to form a wide variety　of close relationships with a wide variety of types of other people and that they can derive sexual pleasure from anything that can stimulate their sex organs.　　Circumstances are a significant　determinative factor.　 Cultures, periods of history, religion, life circumstances, and so many other external factors can shape proclivities and temporary alterations.　 Over the last almost sixty years, I have also noticed that psychological 'conclusions' tend to trend with the vogue.　 I would caution psychologists who write for the general public to avoid definitive pronouncements about the nature of human beings.　 Perhaps, we are extraordinary pliable and plastic.　 Ten, twenty, one hundred, one thousand years from now today's pronouncements may seem so idiotic as to be laughable.　 Yet, as arrogance seems to be a part of our current nature, I presume such 'ex cathedra' pronouncements will continue and will continue to be a lucrative way to make a living. 　Expertise enjoys its time on the stage.　 After all that flourishing, expertise tends to be anchored in its time and a very transitory thing.