Why hymens?

Cecil did a pretty good job of summarizing the theories why hymens might exist - except for one which just occurred to me. I've been rereading a bunch of Stephen Jay Gould's books (great essays, if you like essays), and he points out that many things which make humans special, like extended ability to learn easily, large head size, and the like, are really juvenile characters - making it likely that one of the things which happened back in our evolution was that our growth pattern was messed with, causing us to retain certain juvenile characteristics into adulthood. Cecil points out that in several other sorts of mammals, hymens exist in the embryo but not later. Perhaps the persistence of the hymen to adulthood in humans is an unintended side-effect of the suite of changes induced by retained juvenility?

I cannot believe that even cecil messed this one up! The purpose of the "hymen" is so obvious! Due to the lack of schooling of many early americans where learning survival skills took a back seat to a formal education and thereby spelling was not an important life objective, the original spelling of the word was inadvertantly incorrectly written Once the "hymen" was discovered, it was realized that the barrier was actually an anatomic greeting card for a woman's first encounter. Originally it was spelled "hi man." However, as with many new terms, had gone through a metamorphasis in actual terminology. This, along with the formally educated perpetuating the need to make simple body terms difficult for everyone, formally changed the "hi man" to hymen. You can see other examples of this perpetuation in the terms "hypertension" (HI blood pressure) "hyperglycemic" (HI sugar)

Cute Ursula. However, I shall most immediately take out the mystery for you.
Tada. Read this below and then you tell me if you can figure it out :-)

Hymen noun [L, fr. Gk Hymen]
: the Greek god of marriage

(C) 1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Good point, Eloise -- that's the only sensible theory offered so far. Speculating about the evolutionary purpose of every little feature is a lot of fun, but people tend to forget that some things may not have a purpose -- they're just byproducts of other processes.

On the tangential question of women's orgasms, there are some interesting insights in Gould's essay "Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples", printed in _Bully for Brontosaurus_.

well, maybe I was not entirely correct. Guess that 30 grand for college was ill-spent. But it was fun! ;)

I am so very disapointed with Cecil's sources. They obviously know nothing about anthropology.

" ... that appears to be unique to our species is the retention of the
hymen or maidenhead in the female."

Like Cecil pointed out this is incorrect.

"By putting a partial brake on this trendin the female, the hymen demands that she shall have already developed a deep emotional involvement before taking the final step, an involvement strong enough to take the initial physical discomfort in its stride."

Sorry, but back in the day, males didn't ask for sex (which makes sense that the more aggressive [physically] sex has the stronger sex drive. Also, women had no need to keep the male aroung after the birth of her children. Like all primates, human females are self suffucient in feeding & protecting her kids.

"Such adaptations are explicable only if the male of the species finds it to his advantage to seek a virgin,"

"But we don't even know why women have orgasms. Morris's preposterous theory: orgasm keeps women on their backs afterward, grinning with satisfaction, whereas if they were up and about right off the bat, the semen and with it their chances of reproductive success would dribble down their legs."

This guy seriously needs to stop reading 1950's sex-ed books. First off, any eighth grader can tell you, a female can get pregnant no matter how hard she jumps up and down or runs around after sex. Seamen doesn't fall out (some of her natural lubricant might, however). The reason women have orgasms is the same reason why men have nipples. Long, long, long ago we were unisex creatures. Male and female reproductive systems are virtually the same minus the obvious differences. Having two different sexes offers more variation than receiving all your chromosones from the same person, thus faster evolution.

mothh@aol.com

Why are there female orgasms?

So females will want to have more sex.

More sex, more children.

This isn't a hard question, people.

Since when do women's orgasms make more babies?

Now, more male orgasms yes, but women's, no.

Is there any other female mammal that has the capacity for orgasm?

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"With enough courage, you can do without a reputation." - Rhett Butler

Isn't evolution supposed to produce a species tailored to live in a cerain environment? If humans are the epitome of evolution, why are we so unsuited to live on our planet? We need clothing to protect ourself, tools to hunt and gather, and various medicines to survive. Now include everything that makes no sense (like hymens).
Of course, these same arguments make sense against creationism as well. Why create an organism unable to survive on it's own. Anyway, I always thought it was to protect the vaginal area until the female was of capable age to reproduce.

Except that Boltcutter didn't say female orgasm leads directly to more babies, but that female orgasm leads to more sex and more sex leads to more babies.

Orgasm = Woman enjoys sex
Woman enjoys sex = Woman more likely to have sex
Woman more likely to have sex = Woman more likely to get pregnant

It's not an irrational conclusion to come up with, although there are other factors that would influence it in the real world.

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"We're gonna have lawyers here. It'll be a fun time."
--R.R.S.

It has also been shown that the orgasm in women help dip the cervix into the pool of semen that occurs in the vagina after ejaculation, this helps fertility.

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>>while contemplating the navel of the universe, I wondered, is it an innie or outie?<<

---The dragon observes

RE: "Why create an organism unable to survive on its own?"

First of all--" its" does not need an apostrophe.

Secondly, What the heck do you mean---unable to survive on its own? There is NO living organsim that is totally self-sufficient. Look at the lowest form of plant life even. They too need carbon dioxide and sunlight to produce their own food. Organsims (NOT ORGASMS) that are able to produce asexually still cannot survive on its own! Yes, we humans (or at least I, human (don't know about you) need to use tools to hunt, clothes for warmth, yet we are capable to survive on our own! We have the capability to realize how to survive on our own. We have the skills and brain power to use or make tools to hunt, clothes to make, and homes for shelter to build.

We can get religious here and refer to Genesis (the Bible--oh yeah we learned to communicate without noises or gestures too) where the BIG "S" (sin) resulted in human beings needing clothes, hunting for food, et al. Whereas in the Garden of Eden everything necessary was supplied.

Well, that's life. Ya gotta do whatcha gotta do :)

[Is there any other female mammal that has the capacity for orgasm?]

There are even other species where the females have sex just for fun - and not just with males, either. Bonobos are a favorite of mine. (they kind of look like chimps, but are sufficiently different biologically to be another species; there's also really interesting behavioral differences). Actually, evolutionarily speaking, it'd be a heckuva lot harder to have a species where the male orgasmed and the female, using equivalent parts, didn't, than the situation we have now. Basically there'd have to be some selection pressure to *remove* the ability for orgasm from one sex and not the other. Not a likely happenstance, and so we're stuck with what we got. Lemme tell ya, there's a buncha things I'd have changed if someone'd shown me the blueprints before putting us in production (though removing female orgasms isn't, ahem, one of them).

RE: Females being self-sufficient after childbirth...the biological model of attachment theory (or something like that--i took my human bonding course in fall of 1998, which is forever ago to me) states that it is most advantageous for the female to develop a relationship with one male mate for the purposes of conceiving an infant and supporting both mother and child for about 4 years. Interestingly, the "four year itch" results in the end of many relationships today, with or without children.

The cycles of a relationship (initally high attraction, build-up of attachment as attration peaks and wanes, leveling off of attraction while attachment grows slightly) coincide with the desired order of events: at the stage of high attraction, the desire for sex is high--resulting (hopefully) in pregnancy; attraction stays high enough for the male to stay with his pregnant mate, and as this happens, they develop a strong interdependence; this attachment usually stays strong for as much time as it takes to bring the child out of infancy (3-4 years). Of course, many human relationships last much longer than this, but that was a whole other set of lectures....

I should mention, here, the names for two competing theories of female orgasm: the first theory, that orgasm causes the female to lie around exhausted; the second, that the contractions of orgasm may cause sperm to be actually drawn into the uterus. The names? Respectively, the "poleaxe" theory and the "upsuck" theory.

RE: RE: "Why create an organism unable to survive on its own?"

Dear Ursula, I am really disappointed in you. I found your first post really quite charming. Your second however was so snide that I wonder if it was written by the same person.

You wrote:

"First of all--" its" does not need an apostrophe."

Surely then you must feel genuine remorse for your own misuse of the rules of grammar.

"Look at the lowest form of plant life even." is not a sentence and even at that, you misplaced the word "even".

"Organsims (NOT ORGASMS) that are able to produce asexually still cannot survive on THEIR own!"

"Yes, we humans (or at least ME, I don't know about you) need to use tools to hunt AND WEAR clothes for warmth, yet we are capable OF SURVIVING on our own!"

"We have the skills and brain power to USE tools to hunt, MAKE clothes to WEAR, and BUILD homes for shelter."

Enough said. I guess that $30,000 education was a waste at that.

Let's get off the grammar train

Eye halve a spelling chequer.
>It came with my pea sea.
>It plainly marques four my revue
>Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
>
>Eye strike a key and type a word,
>And weight for it two say
>Weather eye am wrong oar write.
>It shows me strait a weigh.
>
>As soon as a mist ache is maid
>It nose bee fore two long,
>And eye can put the error rite.
>Its rare lea ever wrong.
>
>Eye have run this poem threw it.
>I am shore your pleased two no
>Its letter perfect awl the weigh.
>My chequer tolled me sew.

me so sorry hershey. You be rightly. I was be'd in a bad mood when I were writed that them there message. And me gots a whole lot much more lot of education than alots of you alls.

(Just kidding---I do appreciate that you found my first response charming!! thanks! :)

Urs

Most likely reason for a human hymen is to keep foreign stuff [hair, leaves, etc] out of the vagina.

Why is it that men seem to think that every part of a woman's body is there only because it has some pleasure function or honor function for a man?

A hymen, most reasonably, would keep out foreign matter until a woman is old enough to learn to keep it out and learn to clean herself there.

I'm not a women, but I can't imagine that there are that many things going into a woman's vagina that she needs to grow a cover. If that were the case, why wouldn't we grown covers for our ears or noses? They are just as subceptible to penetration by foreign objects.

Handy;

You've got to be kidding. A hymen's purpose is to keep foreign matter out of the vagina? How do you propose that one would end up with a leaf in her vagina? Really strong wind, perhaps? Have you ever actually heard of--or better yet, are there any documented cases of-- a pre-pubescent girl having such foreign matter in her vagina? If there were even a shred of logic to this thought, should there also not be some sort of protection over the anus? It is an oriface lying in close proximity to the vagina and surely would be as likely to become stuffed with leaves and dirt as the vagina, would it not? I begining to wonder if your hypothesis falls into the catagory of 'reasons to consider female genitalia dirty'. Leaves, indeed.

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"I think it would be a great idea" Mohandas Ghandi's answer when asked what he thought of Western civilization

Lucky--I have to point out, on behalf of Handy, that he never said "leaves", he said foreign matter.

He did say 'leaves'. Check his second to last post.

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"I think it would be a great idea" Mohandas Ghandi's answer when asked what he thought of Western civilization

Sure I said leaves. A woman had to wipe with something. They didn't have toilet paper in caveman days. duh.

Lucky, a hymen on the anus would be silly cause big stuff comes out there all the time.

Like appendix's, spleens, tonsils, etc, one can only guess what their original purpose was.

Sorry handy. I just thought the leaf bit was so ridiculous I couldn't resist the anus bit. And just so you understand, getting a leaf stuck in one's vagina while practicing basic hygene is completely absured. I'm tempted to ask you about the hair, but I'm afraid.
In all seriousness, though, don't you think it's more likely that people would have used water to wipe themselves? This method is still used throughout India and Nepal, and I am sure many other countries in that region. I'm pretty sure that the concept of toilet paper (or any natural substitute thereof) is a fairly recent invention.
It also doesn't make sence to me that the vagina would require special protection against--what was it that you suggested it protected the vagina from? You said foreign matter. Did you mean that that might lead to infection? If so, I don't see how the vagina is any more vunerable than any other oriface.
I think you did suggest that it may have something to do with cleanliness. Again, are you talking about possible infection?


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"I think it would be a great idea" Mohandas Ghandi's answer when asked what he thought of Western civilization

Did I say infection? Hmmm. I must reread myself.

At any rate, the idea was the hymen protects things from getting inside the vagina until a woman is old enuff & wise enuff to protect it herself.

I would guess little girls like to put things there [just like little boys do well...] and the hymen kinda discourages that. I should hope. Thus, foreign matter, foreign objects,
etc.

But of course, if you want the real answer, refer to the bible, which we all know has an answer for everything.

Getting back to Eliose's first posting in this thread:

She reffered to some of S.J. Gould's essays, which state that humans retain several juvenile characteristics into their adulthood, such as the lack of a "crest" found in the adults of most other ape species. (This carrying forward of juvenile traits into adulthood is called "neoteny"; humans are sometimes called neotenic apes.) She then referred to Cecil's article, which stated that the hymen is present in the embryos of most mammalian species but disappears soon afterward. This, she theorized, might mean that the hymen in adult females (before they get the membrane out of the way, so to speak) may be a neotenic feature, a juvenile trait brought into adulthood along with our oversized heads.

one flaw I can see in this argument is that our neotenic features are all things that are present in ape children of other species -- not things that are present in ape *embryos* of other species. Carrying childhood traits forward into adulthood is one thing; carrying pre-birth traits forward is quite another.

I'm getting off on a tangent because i can =).

Isn't evolution supposed to produce a species tailored to live in a cerain environment? If humans are the epitome of evolution, why are we so unsuited to live on our planet? We need clothing to protect ourself, tools to hunt and gather, and various medicines to survive.


Clothes: If you live in a warm environment, you dont need them. Humans in the jungles and subtropical areas of the world wear little if no clothes at all. Just read a National Geographic magazine. We originated in Africa, a warm place, we moved into cold latitudes where we need clothes to not freeze. If you took a chimp to Norway in the dead of winter, it probably would freeze to death =).
Tools: Obviously we didnt need them as we were evolving, we just learned to use tools. The Same argument could be applied to chimps. Q. If they are suited to their environment, why do they use sticks to get at termites? A. Because they can =).
Medicine: We dont NEED medicine to survive. Our ancestors certainly didnt start using it until they tried out these medicines. Also many other animals use plants to help things along. Dogs will eat grass to cure constipation, which is their version of a laxative =).

Handy, GET REAL!

Outside of the primates, it appears that female orgasm is rare. However, many species have managed to reproduce successfully without it. Look at rats. (If female rats have the big O, I DON'T want to know about it.)

roksez: "If humans are the epitome of evolution" ?! How are you defining 'epitome'? If by sheer numbers, then bacteria are It, followed by something like cockroaches and rats. Humans are very, very successful generalists, i.e. not specialized for anything. We're ideally suited to live on our planet, because what don't suit us gets changed or we come up with a way to deal with it rather than croak ( clothing, tools, etc).

But to actually address the issue at hand (hymens), how 'bout this theory. Land vertebrates came from marine verts originally. Hymens are a vestigial remnant of the vertebrate aquatic past. Female whales have a hymen, presumably to keep water under pressure out when down deep. Yeah, whales descended from terrestrial verts which bagged the land and went aquatic again. But any vertebrate who goes deep is going to need mechanisms to keep orifices from getting flooded. Of course, the question arises as to why all terrestrial verts don't retain hymens... Argh. I was on a roll.

Anyone familiar with the aquatic ape theory?

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"All I say here is by way of discourse and nothing by the way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed." ~ Montaigne

Isn't evolution supposed to produce a species tailored to live in a cerain
environment? If humans are the epitome of evolution, why are we so
unsuited to live on our planet? We need clothing to protect ourself, tools to
hunt and gather, and various medicines to survive.

Your first sentence made sense. Your second sentence directly contradicted it. First of all, humans are not, in any sense, "the epitome of evolution." We are a successful species, but there's no way, neither geneologically nor any other way I can think of, in which we can consider ourselves the epitome. In fact, I have an essay about this -- it's a first draft, but should help -- at http://www.insidetheweb.com/mbs.cgi/mb596423 under the subject "the human pinnacle." Whoever posted to say that we don't need clothing, tools or medicine (sorry, I'm on the reply page and can't see the thread) was right. The tools et al are little bonuses, on an evolutionary time scale. However, if you're talking about the natural selection that's going on right now -- sickly people living and all -- it's true that most of us wouldn't last five seconds in a jungle. But we don't have to, if we're not actually living in a jungle. There is no absolute scale against which all animals must be compared; an organism can only be evaluated with respect to its environment. Can it survive in that environment or not? In the case of humans, there are lots of us that are prospering in our tool-dependent and clothing-ridden world that would not prosper in a jungle. However, something similar can be said of, say, whales (Whales find it very tough to swing from trees, in case you're wondering).