May 08, 2009

• I expect it's more cogent in the original papers, but on this account the theory doesn't seem to make sense. The question is why human wedding tackle is so much bigger than chimps', and has the bulgy bit on the end. The answer offered is that the bulgy bit scrapes out rival semen, which helps combat the effects of human female partner-switching. But that doesn't apply to chimps? I mean, say what you like about human females, the idea that they do more partner-switching than female chimps is surely wildly in contradiction of the facts. And the anomalously large size of the human penis just seems to be, er, left hanging. Perhaps there are missing bits of the theory not quoted here which make it work. It seems more likely that different penis shape has something to do with the completely different sexual behaviour of humans and chimps.
• Or penis length correlates to vagina length on average? Still doesn't explain the bulgy bit, though -- but that may be explained by human sexual behaviour. I have never studied chimpanzee sexuality, but I wonder whether there's a connection between bulgy bit/female orgasm/spasming leading to greater chance of impregnation. Sorry, google.
• "say what you like about human females, the idea that they do more partner-switching than female chimps is surely wildly in contradiction of the facts." Maybe not at this point in history, but that is culturally controlled (by religion, mores, etc). We are talking about an evolutionary adaptation that arose (cough) in our early ancestors, long after they split from chimp-like common progenitors. Probably Homo Erectus.. AHA HA HA HA! OH MAN I SLAY ME .. ahem, anyway, yeah, back in the day, maybe human ancestral females were swapping partners a lot more, perhaps inter tribal conquests or such like was a major factor in prehistoric human groupings. If it was a major factor, then I can see this physical adaptation being more viable. I mean, even as late as the middle ages, Mongol horde conquerors claimed women by right of victory. Genghis Khan is supposed to be the common ancestor of 17 million central asian people due to this fact. This seems to be an indicator that sexual conquest is a biological imperative of high order in humans, something that would be of ancient biological origin. This supports the hypothesis we examine here. Chimp groups are dominated by an alpha male and a couple of subordinates. The alpha gets all the women, and the subordinates get a bit on the side when they can. Under such a circumstance, there's no reason for this adaptation to be selected-for. Early human ancestors and indeed early modern man had far more complex group dynamics, and this may be part of the reason why natural selection influenced our big plonkers. Humans do like to fuck a lot. Remove the social and legal restrictions on the act, the psychological 'ownership' element, and you get a lot of fucking going on. Remember back in the 60s? People screwed around a lot. Women are no more prone to monogamy than men, if you remove all the social constraints. Which is fine with me, btw.
• I don't think the question "Why is the penis shaped like that?" makes much sense. Shaped like that, as opposed to what? The penis needs to go from over here *outside a vagina* to over there *inside a vagina*. The most obvious shape for going here to there is an arrow. The penis is shaped like an arrow. The most obvious shape for penetration is shovel-shaped. The penis is shovel-shaped. The most obvious shape for being in a dark and wet cave is mushroom-shaped. The penis is mushroom-shaped. What's so hard about a penis shape? Really, what are the alternatives? Hour-glass shaped? Tennis ball shaped? Horseshoe shaped? Maybe the question isn't "Why is the penis shaped like that?" but "Why does the penis have a head?". The answer to that one is simple: the alternatives were to have a fingernail, a claw, or a rattle. With a fingernail or a claw, I'd get intercourse even less often. With a rattle, well, that'd be awesome. That'd be perfect. That's question to ask: "Why doesn't the penis have a rattle?"
• According to Remy De Gourmont's excellent book, The Natural Philosophy of Love, the male flea's reproductive organ is, in fact, horseshoe shaped, or at least does a U-turn during coitus, prior to being ripped off afterwards. With flies, he says, "feminism is brought frankly into the love mechanism... the females force their oviduct, then a veritable prong, into the male's belly." He has many other examples, which our ancestors rejected for us.
• I'm glad men don't have cat penii.
• Or women!
• I'd always assumed that it was, as in the old condom ad, "ribbed for her pleasure". This, somewhat tangentially, appeared this morning's weekly b3ta newsletter - SWF, no actual penii depicted, just pants bulges.