As a result of high levels of male parental investment, humans evolved into a somewhat “androgynous” species - a species in which human females exhib… - Steve Stewart-Williams

The pattern of sex differences found in our species mirrors that found in most mammals and in many other animals. As such, considerations of parsimony suggest that the best explanation for the human differences will invoke evolutionary forces common to many species, rather than social forces unique to our own. When we find the standard pattern of differences in other, less culture-bound creatures, we inevitably explain this in evolutionary terms. It seems highly dubious, when we find exactly the same pattern in human beings, to say that, in the case of this one primate species, we must explain it in terms of an entirely different set of causes — learning or cumulative culture — which coincidentally replicates the pattern found throughout the rest of the animal kingdom. Anyone who wishes to adopt this position has a formidable task in front of them. They must explain why, in the hominin lineage uniquely, the standard evolved psychological differences suddenly became maladaptive, and thus why natural selection “wiped the slate clean” of any biological contribution to these differences. They must explain why natural selection eliminated the psychological differences but left the correlated physical differences intact. And they must explain why natural selection would eliminate the psychological differences and leave it all to learning, when learning simply replicated the same sex differences anyway. How could natural selection favor extreme flexibility with respect to sex differences if that flexibility was never exercised and was therefore invisible to selection?

[A]lthough we agree that caution should be exercised in discussing biological explanations, we would argue that this is a specific instance of a more general truth, namely that caution should be exercised in discussing any explanations. It is not only biological explanations that can undergird harmful practices. Environmental theories of left-handedness and same-sex sexual orientation, for instance, have been associated with cruel and unnecessary interventions designed to eradicate these innocuous traits. Environmental theories of human sex differences, if taken to extremes, could potentially produce comparable harms. For example, if we assume that sex differences in career choice are necessarily evidence of bias and barriers, and never products of the freely made choices of those best-placed to make them, we may pathologise the decisions of individuals who take a gender-typical path, and enact progressively more coercive practices to eliminate the remaining gaps. Like earlier efforts to force people into the mould of traditional gender stereotypes, such practices may mean that some people are funnelled into careers that do not align well with their interests and inclinations.

Does female orgasm have an evolutionary function? Ironically, scientists have yet to come to a satisfying conclusion about this matter.