[lbo-talk] Re: lbo-talk Digest, Vol 18, Issue 17

Luke Weiger lweiger at umich.edu
Thu Jun 2 09:49:26 PDT 2005


Jim Devine wrote:


> As for biological explanation of female organism, I gave mine a while
> back: males and females are essentially the same kinds of creatures,
> co-evolving almost as a unit and sharing many characteristics
> (nipples, orgasms). They are clearly different, too, distinguished by
> the various hormones that flow through are veins as a result of the
> extra X or the substitute Y chromosome. (Pre-op male-to-female
> transexuals suppress testosterone (etc.) and take estrogen (etc.) and
> end up being pretty "feminine" despite having a diversified set of sex
> chromosomes.)

This does nothing to explain why it is that humans came to have orgasms in the first place. Couple slight tweaks to our genetic blueprint and, voila, no orgasms. I think even Gould and Lewontin would fess up and admit that sex is pleasurable because (over many eons in the past) folks who found sex pleasurable were more likely to leave offspring behind. Every evolutionary account of a purported adaptation is a "just so" story, but that doesn't mean they're all mere fantasies. Do you think hands are evolutionary accidents?

-- Luke



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