I'm currently watching this show on Discovery Health about sex. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Emily, why are you watching a show about sex? You already know everything!" True, I do know a lot, but being the humble individual that I am, I must consent that there are things that even I am not aware of.
The first thing that I found interesting was how our sex organs have evolved over time. Making the leap to walking on two legs re-arranged the pelvis so that the vagina tipped downward. I don't find this particular piece of information all that amazing, but the cool part is how males adapted to be able to actually have sex with women face to face, as a result of said tipping.
If men had a penis the same relative size of a gorilla, it would be 2/3 of an inch long. Yep, you read that right... teeeeeeeny tiny penis! Because of this new sex position, a thicker penis would have been needed to stimulate the women, and it would have to grow longer so sperm could actually have some kind of chance of reaching their final destination.
From an evolutionary standpoint, bigger is better. Sorry guys.
"What about the testes," you ask? Great question! The male testicles also evolved to better suit human reproduction. Compared to our body mass, the size of the male nut-sack is somewhere in between that of a chimp and a gorilla. Chimps, believe it or not, have really large balls, 3x the relative size of humans, whereas gorillas have testicles about 1/4 the size of humans.
Now, the question is what does testicle size have to do with anything, really? Well, according to the show, the larger the testicle, the larger the amount of sperm. Animals that are rather promiscuous, like Chimps, need a lot of sperm so they can successfully reproduce. Gorillas, on the other hand, are fairly (note fairly) monogamous... or at least the male gorillas don't have to worry as much about "getting some."
Ladies, the next time you're wondering why men in general can be monogomous, but uh... "slip"? One reason might be because the size of the male testy evolved in such a way so as to lead men to exhibit both traits of monogamy and promiscuity.
I'd like to note though that I am not trying to give excuses for why guys cheat... lord knows that girls do it to, and the last I checked I don't have testicles... so since I am a girl I would hope that my non-testicle genital region could be comparative to the genital region of other girls who do cheat. Yeah, I'm going to shut up now.
I might write more about the physical and chemical effects of being in love followed by what actually happens physically during sex, but not in this entry.
More next time.
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