GC: What do "-sexual" and "-sexuality" mean? If sex is about reproduction, why are "homosexuality" and "same sex" not contradictions in terms?

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[–]SnowAssMan 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Our understanding of human sexuality is androcentric. In men orgasm & reproduction is the same thing. In women they are two separate things, by two separate organs.

You can't even use words like "erotogenic" to refer only to the pleasure aspect separate from the reproductive, because the "gen" part, like "genesis" is again referring to reproduction.

Homosexuality is not two different words, it's one word & is not defined by the connotation of part of the word. If connotation & denotation were the same then it'd be called 'homoromantic', since any straight person can have a sexual encounter with a same sex partner, that doesn't make them homosexual.

You're saying that sex means sexual intercourse & you seem to believe that this somehow overwrites the fact that it's an umbrella term for male & female. Colloquially sex means sexual intercourse, however I'm sure you know that a word can have more than one meaning, right?

[–]MarkTwainiac 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Thanks for standing up for women and for greater understanding of female sexuality, SnowAss!

However, I think it's a mischaracterization to say that in women orgasm & reproduction "are two separate things." Many scientists believe that female orgasm does indeed play a role in human reproduction by increasing the likelihood that fertilization/conception will occur.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-09384-0_7

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5087695/

More research needs to be done to ascertain if it there is indeed a link between female orgasm and greater sperm uptake or "insuck" that would make fertilization/conception more likely. And about other changes in the female body that orgasm might trigger that could cause a woman to be more likely to conceive.

Moreover, whilst scientists so far have only expressed curiosity about whether there's a link between female orgasm and human conception, another issue that has not been looked at but definitely should be researched is the role that orgasm plays over the course of pregnancy - and thus human reproduction overall.

I think if researchers did inquire, they'd find that female orgasms during pregnancy might well perform a number of functions that end up having beneficial physiological effects on a zygote, embryo and fetus, starting with the obvious surge in oxytocin production - just as female orgasms certainly have myriad positive effects on pregnant women. I suspect that this might be one of the reasons that female orgasms during pregnancy tend to be much more powerful than otherwise - and why so many women experience a huge rise in desire, indeed need, for orgasms during pregnancy unlike what we experience when not pregnant.

https://mom.com/momlife/271306-things-about-pregnancy-orgasms-i-didnt-know-until-i-experienced-them

https://www.glamour.com/story/masturbation-during-pregnancy-is-a-thing-i-would-know

https://www.glamour.com/story/masturbation-during-pregnancy-is-a-thing-i-would-know

Finally, I don't know what you mean when you say that in women orgasm and reproduction are tasks done by or involving

two separate organs

What is the second organ you are referring to? (I'm presuming the first is the clitoris.)

Actually, many different female organs are involved in the first event that kicks off human reproduction, conception, as well as what happens in the 39-41 weeks that women who give birth at term are typically pregnant.

Human conception occurs in the Fallopian tubes, but to get to the Fallopian tubes sperm has to travel there by way of the vagina, cervix and uterus. Once an egg is fertilized in the Fallopian tubes, the fertilized egg - or zygote - has to make its way into the uterus and become implanted in the uterine wall. Then a whole new body organ - the placenta - has to form and grow for the zygote to turn into an embryo and then to become a fetus. Many other organs outside the female reproductive tract - the kidneys, liver, heart, lungs, brain, pituitary - are involved in human reproduction too. In fact, in the many months between conception and birth, pretty much every organ in the female body plays a part in human reproduction.

Also, many separate and different organs in the male reproductive tract are involved in kicking off human reproduction too. The penis might be the locus of male orgasm, but sperm comes from the testes - and the involvement of organs such as the prostate, Cowper's gland, and the vas deferens are required in order to make the pre-ejaculate needed to neutralize the acid in the male urethra and thus clear the way for sperm, and to contribute fluids that make up the seminal fluid which capable of carrying sperm through the male urethra and out the head of the penis in orgasm.

I very much appreciate your pointing out that the conventional view of human sexuality is androcentric, but - LOL - so is equating human reproduction with fertilization. Whereas the biological contribution that males make to human reproduction is one and done at fertilization, for females that's just the start of a much longer and far more complicated set of processes.

[–]SnowAssMan 6 insightful - 6 fun6 insightful - 5 fun7 insightful - 6 fun -  (1 child)

The female oragsm contributes comparatively little if anything to reproduction when compared to the overall reproductive role the female body engages in, as you pointed out, all it does is ease the process of fertilisation, which has proven to be completely unnecessary in 100% of cases.

More intelligent animals have uses for orgasm outside of reproduction. Human being are one such animal. Obviously we can never totally separate orgasmic pleasure from reproduction, since the former is an outgrowth of the latter, so there will always be some blurred lines.

The two organs I was referring to were the clitoris for pleasure & the birth canal for reproduction. Conversely, men only have 1 organ. This whole time my use of the word 'reproduction' has been androcentric too, since, as you rightly pointed out, reproduction is more than just fertilisation. I've been centring fertilisation, which is why I was counting the birth canal as supposedly the only reproductive organ in the female body.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for clarifying.

The female oragsm contributes comparatively little if anything to reproduction when compared to the overall reproductive role the female body engages in, as you pointed out, all it does is ease the process of fertilisation

Well, this has been the assumption, but we really don't know coz it's one of many areas that's not been studied. Remember, the conventional view of human sexuality is so androcentric that clitoral orgasm was denigrated or denied as a real thing for many, many years. Girls and women were told the lie that to orgasm in the "right way" we had to do it vaginally, and if we didn't orgasm vaginally we were "frigid" and deficient. That was still commonly taught and believed in the Western world until circa 1970:

https://wgs10016.commons.gc.cuny.edu/the-myth-of-the-vaginal-orgasm-by-anne-koedt-1970/

What's more, the very little research that has been done on this topic has been conducted in weird ways. As in experiments where the possible connection between orgasm and cervical "tenting" and its effect on sperm was done not by studying what goes on when women have orgasms, but by studying what goes on when they're given hits of oxytocin. As if oxytocin = female orgasm.

I actually think that when more research is done on female bodies, a lot of surprising things will be discovered that will turn many assumptions long held sacred on their heads. For example, it's long been assumed that human fertilization is done by the sperm cell that reaches the egg and manages to pierce it first. But research published last year said that's not the case: the egg chooses which sperm it will let in.

The two organs I was referring to were the clitoris for pleasure & the birth canal for reproduction.

I am confused by your use of the term "birth canal." In the US where I live, and the UK where I've spent a lot of time, it's not customary to use the term "birth canal" as a matter of course in discussing female sex anatomy - "birth canal" is used only when discussing human childbirth specifically. I would find it strange and off-putting to hear or see someone use the term "birth canal" in any other context.

I'm also confused by your characterization of the birth canal as as one single organ, when the definition is:

the passage through which the young of mammals pass during birth, formed by the cervix, vagina, and vulva. (Merriam-Webster)

the passageway from the womb through the cervix, the vagina, and the vulva through which a fetus passes during birth. (Oxford)

the passageway from the uterus of a mammal through which a fetus is pushed during birth: it consists of the cervix, vagina, and vulva (Collins)

That's several separate organs. And again, fertilization can't occur in a human female body with the organs that constitute the birth canal alone. At least one functioning ovary and one intact Fallopian tube is also required. Fertilization occurs in the Fallopian tube, and only 3-4 days afterwards does the fertilized egg move down into the uterus to (try to) be implanted into the uterine lining.

Lots of women who have the organs that make up the birth canal can't get pregnant coz they have no ovaries due to oophorectomy and no Fallopian tubes due to salpingectomy - and also coz of various health conditions (diseases and therapies that cause ovarian failure, DSDs, etc). Similarly, lots of women who still have all the organs that constitute the birth canal and the rest of the female reproductive system intact still can't conceive coz they no longer ovulate due to menopause. Since the average age of menarche is 11 and menopause is 51, and the average lifespan of women in much of the world is 84 to near 90, most women who live a full lifespan nowadays will spend more of our lives naturally without the capacity to conceive than with it even with all our reproductive organs intact and in good health.

Similarly, it's not true that "men only have 1 organ" that's involved in fertilization. The penis delivers sperm into the female repro tract, but it doesn't make sperm. Sperm comes from the male gonads, the testes. And sperm doesn't go directly from the testes into and out penis in one fell swoop like a gum ball dropping from a gum ball machine. Other body parts have to contribute to making the seminal fluid that carries the sperm, and the precursor fluid that paves the way for the sperm to pass through the penis by changing the pH of the male urethra first.