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.
“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.
“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.
“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 =).
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?
“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
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).