After one of my Poindexter friends came a whining to me after his 5th consecutive 3rd date…I began to ponder…And I concluded that the sorce of his woe may contain some distinct evolutionaly ramifications. It would seem to me that an individual who can complete the entire sex act in 12 seconds or under, as apposed to the guy who snorts and weezzes for half an hour, had a much greater chance of spreading his seed around…I mean in the days of prehistory of course, when a proper introduction consisted of throwing the Alpha Male a hunk a bloody yak spleen, while you busy yerself entertaining the ladies…This guy could flit from flower to flower before the clan stud muffin could unlace his reed pants. And is it just happenstance that this condition is so prevelent in the Nerd community? I think not…I mean how else did these guys get laid?..Prehistorically speaking of course.
Medically speaking, “premature ejaculation” does not mean simply, “ejaculating as soon as you put it inside her”. It means, “ejaculating before you want to, or sooner than you had planned”. So it’s a completely relative, subjective term.
So if you just wanna debate whether there are evolutionary benefits to ejaculating quickly, you probably won’t get much debate, as it’s an obvious “yes”.
I wouldn’t call it an “obvious yes”. There may well be a r versus K type selection factor here. Quantity versus Quality.
A theory of premature ejaculation as a survival advantage would be at odds with a theory a biology professor of mine once advanced as a possible evolutionary explanation for the female orgasm. The train of thought ran something like this. If a female achieves orgasm during intercourse it tends to make her want to relax and lay still until the sensation has died down a bit. Standing up immediately after an orgasm can be difficult or at least unstable for a good number of women. Since sperm would have to fight gravity if the woman were upright after intercourse it seems a survival adaptation that women have orgasms which make them desire to lay prone for a short period of time after copulation. The sperm do not have to fight gravitational forces in their travels to fertilize an egg if the woman is prone. Indeed they may be aided by gravity. It would seem that a male who was able to induce orgasm in his partner would be at an advantage in this situation because his seed would be more likely to succeed in impregnating her.
Now, knowing nothing for certain about the evolutionary processes which produced the phenomenon of Premature Ejaculation and Female Orgasm, we can still weigh the two hypotheses.
Hypothesis One is an explanation of an adaptation which would allow a rogue male to infiltrate a social community and perhaps bypass the dominant male. This is supported by the evidence of family units that higher primates form. A non-Alpha male would have extremely limited access to females and must get the job done quickly, as it were.
The second is an adaptation where quantity is less important than quality. Ensuring the female actually conceives would be the prominent advantage here. A male who could hold off on their ejaculation until the female had achieved orgasm would be more likely to successfully impregnate a female during any particular encounter. This could be significant given the fertility cycle of a human female only being a few days of each month. Making that shot count could be more important than getting lots of shots which may or may not fall on days when the recipient is fertile.
So, which do you think is more likely? K-type?(quality) Or r-type?(quantity)
There’s a problem with this theory… it relates to Mtgman’s comments on quantity vs. quality, but there’s a different spin on it here.
Sperm doesn’t regenerate instantly. A male who ejaculates several times in one day is going to wind up with a pretty low sperm count. Most fertility doctors will tell you that optimal sperm count is achieved if you have sex about every other day. From this page:
In other words (to put it bluntly), if you get a guy who shoots his wad all the time and easily, you might actually have someone with less of a chance of procreation than someone who makes the shot count… which is another way of saying exactly what Mtgman said.
As for why this is so prevalent in the “Nerd community”… is it really? I’ve known an awful lot of women who’ve mentioned athletic types who didn’t make it over the long haul, as it were. Whatever the “type” of guy that has this problem, I’d say it has more to do with nerves and comfort levels than anything genetic. The wafflng of the medical types in DDG’s link as to a clinical cause, or even a definite measurement, of premature ejaculation would suggest (to me) that the causes are more psychological than physical.
PPS, even if you discount the idea of gravity or the prone/upright position of a woman in the time period immediately following intercourse, there is another possibility which would select for a male who can cause orgasm in his partners. This semi-work-friendly site(a few small images, one of a woman with an intense look on her face and one breast exposed and two drawings of the female reproductive system) explains some of the research into WHY women have orgasms as well as some of their physiological effects. One particularly interesting effect of an orgasm
If this research bears out then it looks like a guy who could go the distance may have had a significant advantage over the prehistoric equivelant of Wilt Chamberlain.