Setting aside the particular theoretical speculation, it is odd to describe a sociobiological explanation as one involving "social construction" which in the usual meaning of the term means blank-slate, no-biological aspect to the explanation at all. A sociobiological explanation is a biological explanation -- one that states that a certain (often behavioral one) trait tends to increase adaptive fitness in part because of the social environment. Since all biological traits unfold in an environment and the human environment is substantially social, some general and maybe some specific SB explanations have to be true, though mostly we don't know which ones. That isn't to say the traits are "socially constructed." They are sociobiologically constructed.
As for my speculation, it was a further thought I had to balance against the idea that the location of the clitoris is a design defect if a main function of the capacity for sexual pleasure is to encourage copulation.
DD's theory actually recreates the original problem -- if the clit is where it is because humanoid ancestors did it doggy style like most animals, it's not obvious how that kind of stimulation would excite the clit without manual manipulation by the male or the female -- an extra step and expenditure of both learning and energy. If by the female, it would tell her nothing (positive) about her mate. Thus, a design defect. The simplest design would be to put the clit in or near enough to the vagina so that it would be stimulated by intercourse rather than requiring extra steps such as oral or manual simulation. Either way, it looks like a design defect.
My theory, advanced very tentatively, makes it make evolutionary sense for the clit to be located where it because women would tend to prefer mates who gave them orgasms through taking the extra effort and time (since men on average come quicker) to provide clitoral stimulation, and that would be adaptive if the willingness to do that was associated with greater loyalty and more attentiveness. We don't know whether this is true, of course, but suggestion of an adaptive mechanism is explanatory progress, as long as one doesn't insist that all traits are adaptive. Some - cystic fibrosis, MS, CFS, sickle cell, Epstein Barr -- are not. It may turnout in the end that big brains are not adaptive in long-medium run, unless we figure out PDQ how to fix the world we've fucked up.
--- Daniel Davies <d_squared_2002 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> First up, the location of the clitoris is not a
> socially constructed fact, so
> this looks more like biology to me than
> sociobiology. Andie's theory that
> sociology had a big impact on biology (through this
> "sensitive lovers" theory)
> is possible but seems unlikely to me for two
> reasons.
>
> 1. Social adaptations of this sort are really quite
> rare and not usually
> universal when they happen in human beings; for
> example, there are still plenty
> of people around who can't digest cow's milk and
> wheat (despite the clear
> evolutionary advantage to doing so post the
> domestication of cows and wheat),
> but there aren't plenty of people around who have
> their clitorises located in
> any other than roughly the normal position. In
> general, the sociolbiologists
> have better luck when they try to use biological
> facts to explain social ones
> rather than vice versa.
>
> 2. The mechanism seems way too weak to explain the
> biological facts. Remember
> that the "just so story" we're talking about here
> would actually go thus: "once
> upon a time, women had clitorises in all sorts of
> weird and wonderful places.
> But as time went on, the ones who had them
> conveniently located weren't able to
> see how much trouble their husbands were prepared to
> take over their pleasure,
> and so they tended to get married to shiftless and
> unsuitable men, and as a
> result they are extinct." It doesn't seem very
> likely to me.
>
> Surely the bookies' favourite explanation would have
> to be that the clitoris
> *is* more or less conveniently positioned, if you
> are on all fours and
> copulating from behind. (You can try this
> experiment at home, I am told,
> although remember that an ape's pelvis is rather
> more angled than a human
> being's, being adapted for ape-like knuckle
> walking). As we developed into
> homo erectus, the very major morpohological changes
> that would have been needed
> to put the clitoris anywhere else (think of the
> plumbing!) just didn't take
> place, and we learned to live with it as best we
> could.
>
> This also fits in with the development of the human
> penis, which is much bigger
> than that of other great apes - according to
> biologists of my acquaintance,
> this is a result of it trying to keep up with the
> progress of the female pelvis
> as it tilted further and further in the direction of
> upright walking, until we
> gave up the ghost and human beings adopted
> face-to-face copulation.
>
> Eyebrows *certainly* have the purpose of keeping
> sweat out of your eyes;
> something like them are very common on basically any
> animal that sweats.
>
> best
> dd
>
>
>
>
>
>
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