Recreation and procreation: A critical view of sex in the human female

Abstract

This review deals critically with many aspects of the functional genital anatomy of the human female in relation to inducing sexual arousal and its relevance to procreation and recreation. Various controversial problems are discussed including: the roles of clitorally versus coitally induced arousal and orgasm in relation to the health of women, the various sites of induction of orgasm and the difficulty women find in specifically identifying them because of "'ambiguity problems" and "genital site pareidolia," the cervix and sexual arousal, why there are so many sites for arousal, why multiple orgasms occur, genital reflexes and coitus, the sites of arousal and their representation in the brain, and identifying aspects and functions of the genitalia with appropriate new nomenclature.

Adaptationism and the Logic of Research Questions: How to Think Clearly About Evolutionary Causes

“…Alan Dixson, the world authority on comparative primate sexuality, denies that this sort of cryptic female choice selection occurs in human beings (2012, p. 630). As expected, then, the female choice set of claims is not supported, as can be seen by the following levels/quality of empirical evidence (see Lloyd 2005;Levin 2011Levin , 2014a. (Each evolutionary model is supplied with traits, a hereditary basis, a connection of the trait to fitness, if there is one, and a selection pressure, if there is one.)…”

The clitoral activation paradox — Claimed outcomes from different methods of its stimulation

“…The explanation for this distance has been the subject of a limited number of suggestions (Kennedy and Pavličev, ) but none proposed can realistically be confirmed. It is a complex structure composed of internal (crura, root and vestibular bulbs) and external or visible components (body or shaft, glans, prepuce) despite idiosyncratic protestations (Puppo, ) about such designations (see Levin for further discussion). Its anatomical history has been described by Di Marino and Lepidi (2004).…”

“…The gel has then to be enzymatically liquefied to enable them to become motile, make contact with the various components of the ejaculate and for the first stages of capacitation (pre‐capacitation) to occur before they are transported to the open, ipsilateral fallopian tube servicing the ovulating ovary. Effective clitoral stimulation during foreplay induces high sexual arousal, and activates the processes of vaginal tenting and ballooning (Masters and Johnson, ) where the utero‐cervical complex is withdrawn by muscle contraction up into the false pelvis removing it from the semen pool and thus, crucially, preventing any premature transport of noncapacitated sperm unable to fertilize ova that would decrease reproductive functionality (see Levin c, for details and references). Clitoral stimulation induces such sexual arousal very rapidly ensuring that the tenting occurs automatically to create the best genital tract conditions for possible, subsequent fertilization.…”

Exceptionalism is not exceptional in relation to sexual and reproduction mechanisms: Contrasts of human and animal sexuality

“…Exceptionalism is defined as “the belief that a certain thing constitutes an exception in relation to others of its class” (Brown, ) but when used in a biological context more specifically as “the perception that a species is unusual, unique or extraordinary.” There is sound evidence that the oxytocin released at orgasm in the human female is highly unlikely to influence the rate and/or the amount of sperm transported to the ovum by activating uterine contractions creating an upsucking of sperm (Levin ,b, ). A recent criticism of this conclusion in a short review of sperm transport in the human female during coitus (King, Dempsey and Valentine, ) is that it relies on “human exceptionalism” with more than a hint that it is contra to evolutionary continuity.…”