This is part of an article review I did for an Anthropology class. Finally college is starting to pay off...Enjoy...
<p>"The complex issue of female orgasm comes down to two opposing factors: is it an adaptation or an artifact. The view of female orgasm as an adaptation is really a true Darwinian look based upon that natural selection somehow favored female orgasm and that is the reason it exists. The opposing viewpoint says, in a very simplified form, that females have orgasms because males do.</p>
<p>The artifact argument bases itself not just on the genitalia but also use the nipples as a source of information. When you look at male nipples you wonder what their purpose is. Male nipples certainly do not lactate like they do in females, so what possible reason could they have to exist? The same approach can be taken when the penis and the clitoris are examined. The purpose of the penis is to ejaculate sperm into the female vaginally through the male’s orgasm. The clitoris does not actually serve to release gametes, as the penis does, but still retains the male function as a source of orgasm. The nipples and the genitalia of both sexes are linked together through embryology. Embryology shows that at the beginning of prenatal development males and females start out with essentially the same equipment and that it is only later in the pregnancy that the structure of the genitalia actually starts to differentiate.</p>
<p>Gould says that the reason males and females are structurally analogous is that it is developmentally prohibitive to waste energy on developing completely separate structures. Therefore, while orgasm was adapted for in the male with the purpose of releasing gametes through the penis, it would have been developmentally prohibitive to totally redesign the female just because the clitoris doesn’t serve the same purpose. It is also important to note why Gould and Symons would say that the clitoris doesn’t serve a purpose even though through its direct stimulation it causes orgasm. The central argument to that, is that if female orgasm was an adapted for trait, why is it such an infrequent occurrence in females as cited by the many studies in Symons article and if male orgasm is a product of sexual intercourse, then why is not the clitoris in the vagina where it would receive direct stimulation during sexual intercourse?..."</p>