[lbo-talk] Is Sex Fun for Girls? --> Sociobiology, Sex, and History

[Michael Smith]

On Tuesday 23 January 2007 13:32, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> ... the placement of
> the clitoris, inconvenient for bringing the woman to
> orgasm through intercourse, and promoting intercourse
> would seem to be a major adaptive value of orgasm,
> because it gives women an opportunity to assess
> whether whatever partner she's engaging in sex with --
> and this may be one or many -- would go the extra
> mile, as it were, to satisfy her sexual needs rather
> than merely selfishly indulging his own. This would
> give her information about whether he might be a good
> mate ...

Lotta subjunctives here. Not to be Popperian or anything, 
but isn't there something unsatisfactory about a way of thinking 
that requires hypothesis piled upon hypothesis, and offers
no way to confirm or refute any of them? 

It would be easy enough to come up with any number of 
such explanations for the perverse placement of the clitoris, 
or any other vexatious trait. A quick troll through Google 
suggests that one popular, competing sociobiological 
explanation for the shy little pearl's out-of-the-way domicile
is that it encourages women to select sexual partners with 
large penes. I do not have the privilege of possessing a clitoris 
myself, but perhaps some of our clitoridiferous fellow-listers 
can comment on whether well-endowed partners do or do 
not create more clitoral bliss, just as a physical side-effect
of megalophally.   

A cynical reader might speculate that Andie thinks nature 
selects for Alan Alda because of an ideological commitment 
to Aldatude; other sociobiological tale-spinners may have 
ideological commitments that lead them to emphasize 
hammer-tude. How to decide?