Female orgasm: "What's genetics got to do with it?"

Are surveys the same as science? Well, at least they often form the basis on which research is conducted. Okay. Here's the setup.

A team of investigators in England got 4037 completed answers from 6000 female twins to a confidential questionnaire about how often they achieved orgasm during intercourse and masturbation...including replies from 683 pairs of non-identical twins and 714 pairs of identical twins aged from 19 to 83 (about 3% were lesbian or bisexual).

The conclusion is that 1/3 of women are genetically preprogrammed not to achieve orgasm or to achieve it very rarely--and that this proves it's not a critical evolutionary issue (despite the fact that the contractions of orgasm tend to encourage the upward mobility of sperm and therefore enhance fertility).

As the article says in the opening, great excuse for men who don't care? But it'll be very interesting to see whether actual gene studies confirm these conclusions. And after that, to see what happens when the psychologists have a field day with this. It's bound to be as hotly debated as studies that say things like one race is genetically programmed to be less intelligent than another.

But there's always a danger in scientific research that you find what you're looking for--rather than all of what's there. The "discovery" that there are more kinds of intelligence than just what the typical IQ test measures came as a surprise when it was first introduced--I believe in 1993.

So investigators, beware.

Article from book:

The Case of the Female Orgasm:: "What's genetics got to do with it?"
June 08, 2005
Barbara Payne
The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution
Elisabeth A. Lloyd

Also posted at BioMedNews.org

Barbara Payne is a business writer/journalist/marketing professional with 20 years experience helping executives, entrepreneurs and independent professionals translate their strengths and their passions into their True Voice. She helps them tell their stories in ways that foster ongoing, sustainable success in their chosen markets. She applies her hands-on experience in sales (in industries like manufacturing, automotive, software/hi-tech, medical) to powerful copywriting that gets results--for sales, marketing, training, and search-engine-optimized websites, and more. Barbara, managing principal of ReallyGoodFreelanceWriter.com is an expert on blogs. She speaks and teaches about business blogging and writes corporate blogs for savvy companies across the U.S. To learn more about Barbara and her services visit her website at www.reallygoodfreelancewriter.com