The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in Evolutionary Science
Elisabeth A. Lloyd
Indiana University


Is female orgasm an evolutionary adaptation, evolved for some special aspect
of early human life?  Does it help reproduction?  I will survey some of the
evolutionary answers that have been given for these questions.  I find that
all but one of them fail straightforwardly on the evidence.  This leaves a
glaring question: Why have substandard scientific explanations been accepted
for orgasm for so long?

To answer this question about substandard science, I examine the roles of two
sorts of bias in evolutionary explanations of female orgasm.  First, there is
the bias, present in some biologists but not all, that any trait of interest
*must* be the result of natural selection, that is, it must be an adaptation.
These adaptationists have ruled the ranks of scientists attempting to explain
the trait of female orgasm, and yet have failed to show that female orgasm
has any relationship at all to reproductive success.  I will examine the
recently popular view that orgasm facilitates the movement of sperm up the
reproductive tract, and find it lacking in scientific merit.  Second,
androcentric or male-centered bias has played a prominent role in various
evidentially-deficient explanations, as I will demonstrate.  Finally, I will
describe and offer supporting evidence for the single evolutionary
explanation given -- based on embryologic identity between the sexes,
selection pressure on the males, and lack of selection pressure on the
females -- that seems to be the best supported at this point in time.