California Reaming - A Woman's Adventures In Polyamory

Yesterday's New York Times' most e-mailed story of the day was "A Critic Takes On The Logic Of Female Orgasm." (5/17/05) Recent studies have attempted to analyze why women have orgasms, since there is no real biological reason for it as there is with men. One theory is that female orgasm enables her to retain more sperm in the vagina, giving conception a greater chance. Another is that it may allow her more selectivity in her choice of suitable mates. As my directing teacher liked to say, "A man chases a woman until she catches him."

The jaundiced among us could alternately suggest that female orgasm is nature's way of rewarding us for coping with the vagaries of the male species. There's got to be some sort of pay-off for all this angst, right? A good cum or two can eliminate those memories of the knock-down-drag-out they had before dinner, perhaps.

After reading this story, I applied my fevered brain to the task, and decided to come at the problem from a different direction. Let's look at the male side of things, I said. In the interests of Equal Time at least.

I recalled an episode with a male friend I knew and hung out with and liked, who once told me, with a very helpful tone, that he had undergone a vasectomy. He told me this, I'm sure, in full anticipation that I would be quite thrilled with the news, therefore no longer fearful of getting pregnant by him, therefore willing to immediately if not sooner hit the sack with him.

When in fact my reaction was just the opposite. I went home that night feeling rather discomforted, and vaguely annoyed. It took me a while to pin down how and what I was feeling.

Then I ran across something Norman Mailer wrote somewhere, that women - consciously or not - tend to instinctively seek out those males who are, as it were, not only going to "give it to them," i.e. an orgasm, but who also really give it to them, i.e. get them with child.

If you have doubts about this, I would like to take you on a visit to Ano Nuevo Wildlife Preserve near Santa Cruz, California. There in late winter the sea lions come ashore to mate and bear their young. Battle royals go on among the males to boink as many females as they can. Entire layers of behavior grow out of this need to perpetuate their species.

Certain levels of very gutteral noises for instance issue forth from the boy lions, to attract females and to tell the other guys to buzz off, basically. The behavior can get very aggressive, ranging from rearing up on their haunches to intimidate their rivals, to trying to gnash the throats of their male opponents. Even after the females have mated and borne young, they still can't count themselves out of the woods. The males will still chase solitary females as they try to scramble into the water, and some even manage to rape them. Such is nature's design that the line continues.

The struggle starts even before the males hit the beach. They appear to arrive separately from the females, but they have to be careful in ascertaining which beach the females are hanging out on. If they miscalculate and go ashore at the wrong one, they waste not only valuable time but even more valuable male energy trying to correct the mistake, and having to go out and swim further to find the right beach.

Isn't this what the human realm terms "spring break" around Fort Lauderdale? I thought it sounded vaguely familiar. Sounds just as rough being a sea lion, male that is.
So basically the last man standing gets the babe(s). That's what Norman, God rest his soul, was harping on. I think there's something to it, much as I do not care to end up on Norman Mailer's side in any argument, he's right here. What do I base that on? The fact that having sex with a male when you're in that mode is about the most powerful sex you can have, I maintain.

My male friend shot his chances to hell of my ever going to bed with him. And that's why I was annoyed. I have never had sex with a man, to my knowledge, who has had a vasectomy. I don't think it would appeal to me, even though I can say in the same breath that I have no desire to have children.

But I wanted the POSSIBILITY of fertility and pregnancy to be there. That was MY perk in the arrangement.

Now, let me hasten to add that while I subscribe to this theory of Mailer's - that women really will choose the most likely male partner she can - it does not mean that I as a female want to get knocked up every time I have sex. But the knowledge that fecundity lies lurking in the background is a very charged feeling to take into a sexual encounter. Especially if you are at a point as a woman where you WANT to get pregnant. Sex then becomes full of meaning and intensity, for more than normal.

I had this experience with my partner D, during an intense six-month period or so when I was actively wanting to get pregnant. I don't know what got into me. Raging Hormones, perhaps. And I really liked my partner. And I liked the thought of his genes, especially. I had it bad. Sex became something otherworldly, right up there with alien visitations, I would guess. Complete with anal probes. I felt myself plugged into a process of nature far bigger than I was. Overall, it was great stimulation, probably the only time I will ever personally come to honoring the fertility goddesses. Bless their souls. But I also know I am not a breeder. So it won't happen. But I am a biological female, so those feelings are there and they will rise up.

So, my answer to the Times' story would be that yes, orgasm may have many biological reasons for happening in women. We may never fully know all of them.

But I hope that one of the reasons stays obvious. As one researcher described in the article (a female, by the way), the female orgasm, like the clitoris itself, exists primarily as "fun."


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