Why have female animals evolved such wild genitals?...
Why have female animals evolved such wild genitals?...
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From ducks to dolphins, females have developed sex organs that help them deter undesirable suitors and derive pleasure from non-reproductive behavior
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These are questions that the current framework of sexual selection, with its simple assumptions about aggressive males and choosy females, renders unaskable. Darwin took for granted that the basic unit of nature was the female-male pairing, and that such pairings always led to reproduction. Therefore, the theory he came up with—coy females who pick among competing males—only explained a limited slice of sexual behavior. Those who followed in his footsteps similarly treated heterosexuality as the One True Sexuality, with all other configurations as either curiosities or exceptions.
The effects of this pigeonholing go beyond biology. The dismissal of homosexuality in animals, and the treatment of such animals as freaks or exceptions, helps reify negative attitudes toward sexual minorities in humans. Darwin’s theories are often misused today to promote myths about what human nature should and shouldn’t be. Roughgarden, a transgender woman who transitioned a few years before writing her book, could see the damage more clearly than most. Sexual selection theory “denies me my place in nature, squeezes me into a stereotype I can’t possibly live with—I’ve tried,” she writes in Evolution’s Rainbow.
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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...tm_source=digg
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