"First: If female orgasm was evolved in our species for the first time to provide the woman with a 'behavioural reward' for increased sexual activity, why in the name of Darwin has the job been so badly bungled that there have been whole tribes and whole generations of women hardly aware of its existence?"
-Elaine Morgan, The Descent of Woman
5 comments:
You can blame a lot of factors. Religious prudishness, male ineptitude, lack of a will of self-discovery. Women hopefully are well aware that their orgasms are fully in their control.
Unfortunately those who haven't been satisfied don't know what they're missing out on and lose the motivation to try. However, wouldn't it be somewhat shameful to someone to not be able to fully leverage a part of ones own body? Not being able to harness your orgasm is like refusing to let an elbow bend. In theory it's just as natural, but the orgasm takes a lot of practice that many may see as "dirty" or "shameful".
I'm all in favor of more orgasms in the world, regardless of gender.
And yet there are tribes that focus on teaching men how to pleasure a woman, and women, to pleasure men. Simply how to be good lovers.
Originally I believe the biggest factor was how women were, once upon a time, the lesser gender -- property even. The spoils of war. Your men were just slaughtered, and guess what, you and your daughters are about to get ravaged. It's horrible, but it's our past.
As society has grown and matured since then, I really think that it has to due with the way that religions have shaped cultures. Both Catholicism and Islam come to mind as religious that value a woman as a maiden.
If a woman must be a maid and chaste until her wedding night, then it makes sense to me that (not in a way that I agree with it, just in a "that logically makes sense" way) that focusing on women receiving pleasure would not be integrated into culture. It just... wasn't important...
Anyways, I also think it's unfortunate how women were designed, also. If every woman was capable of having vaginal orgasms, then it'd be a much easier go of it for men.
More men must learn about the wonderful joy that is cunnilingus, imo, but I hope that women continue to learn their own bodies and what makes them really tick.
Blargle!
Orgasm should have been explicitly recognized in the declaration of independents.
So what was main idea that point supporting? What are the other supporting points?
Is she refuting that the orgasm (female or male) was an evolved adaptation for increased probability of offspring? Or is she just venting at this apparent injustice of sorts?
Please give some more context if you get a chance. I'm genuinely curious.
Loki: the book is a feminist response to The Descent of Man and The Naked Ape. The quote in question refutes the idea that the female orgasm exists solely to encourage her to copulate.
I just finished the book; I loved it.
Jason: I wouldn't pick on just the Catholics here. It's kind of a general Christian thing.
Post a Comment