Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?: And Other Reflections on Being Human

by Jesse Bering

  Once they were weaned, the young rats were removed permanently from their mothers and went about doing things that juvenile rats do. Then, at about a hundred days of age, the sexually mature male rats from these initial litters were introduced, individually, to one of two receptive female rats. Here’s the trick, though. Prior to their introduction to the males, Fillion and Blass had coated one of these new females perivaginally with citral scent, and they left the other with her vagina smelling au naturel. Although the citral-scented female genitals made little difference to males from the two other litters—they were happy to have sex with either female—those males that, as pups, had suckled from a mother whose teats and vagina were redolent with lemon ejaculated significantly faster when they were now paired as adults with a lemony female sexual partner. In fact, the investigators reported that these males even had trouble achieving orgasm when mating with the odorless (or at least odorless as far as rat vaginas go) females.

  But can we generalize these Oedipal rodent findings to the development of human sexuality? As far as I’m aware, similar studies have not been done with our own species—although it is interesting to speculate on the possible effects of human breast-feeding on the sexual preferences and biases of adult men. Tied as we are to the idea that children are asexual, however, it’s unlikely we’ll ever know for certain whether or not these data have any analogues with human sexuality; furthermore, I’d imagine it would be a real challenge to find mothers willing to tinker with their child’s development in this domain. Turning one’s son into a fetishist with an unhealthy attraction for reproductive organs that smell like lemon Pledge may well be going above and beyond the call of scientific duty, even if it is done for admirable reasons.

  If only that long-forgotten Michigan rubberphile had known of such curious mechanisms of sexual imprinting, he might have found some solace in science rather than being relentlessly hounded by feelings of religious guilt. What an unfortunate thing to be the same as everyone else in underlying principle but, owing to something largely out of one’s control, so different in technical expression.

  Actually, perhaps it’s not too late for him after all. In his letter, the detective wrote that our rubber lover was in the psychiatric ward, “where he hopes to spend the rest of his life and he wishes to live to be a real old man.” According to my calculations, he’d be in his mid-eighties today. If the hospital staff was ever computer savvy and liberal minded enough to permit their inpatients to browse online, I do hope he lived long enough to experience the sexual renaissance of the Internet … he’d have found tens of thousands of others like him who would have happily indulged his fantasies without his having to resort to criminal activity. And maybe, just maybe, he’s reading this book right now, thinking fondly of his mother clad in white rubber.

  PART V

  Ladies’ Night

  Female Ejaculation: A Scientific Road Less Traveled

  In spite of my own sexual biases, which I’ll try to keep from saturating our discussion, female ejaculation is an enormously fascinating subject matter that has largely escaped serious scientific inquiry, particularly from an evolutionary perspective. This is all the more puzzling given that female ejaculation, which is usually defined as the expulsion of a significant amount of fluid around the time of orgasm—estimates range from, on average, three to fifty milliliters (about ten teaspoons)—is a topic that was first described by scholars about two thousand years ago. We’re not talking here about the normal vaginal lubrication that accompanies female arousal, but rather something more akin to the copious seminal emissions that occur with male orgasms.

  In an extraordinary 2010 review article in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, the urologist Joanna Korda and her colleagues combed through the translated texts of the ancient Eastern and Western literatures and plucked out multiple references that would appear to distinguish between common vaginal lubrication during intercourse and the rarer external ejaculation of sexual fluids. The fourth-century Taoist text Secret Instructions Concerning the Jade Chamber, for example, written for the enterprising man on the art of satisfying a woman in bed, suggested that he decipher the following “five signs” of feminine arousal accordingly:

  1. reddened face = she wants to make love with you

  2. breasts hard and nose perspiring = she wants you to insert your penis

  3. throat dry and saliva blocked = she is very stimulated and excited

  4. slippery vagina = she wants to have her orgasm soon

  5. the genitals transmit fluid = she has already been satisfied

  I wouldn’t recommend you implement these secret instructions today; citing number two in your defense that, say, some woman with a sweaty nose wanted you to insert your penis into her isn’t likely to hold up in a court of law. But the fact that this ancient text distinguishes between “slippery vagina” and “the genitals transmit fluid,” reason Korda and her coauthors, means that the latter can “clearly be interpreted as female ejaculation [at] orgasm.” In ancient India, the Kama Sutra, which dates to A.D. 200–400, speaks of “female semen” that “falls continually.” And in the West, even Aristotle had something to say about female discharge during sexual intercourse, which, he pointed out, “far exceeds” the seminal emission of the man. He also noted—and it’s very tempting to speculate about just how he came to this conclusion—that female ejaculation tends to be “found in those who are fair-skinned and of a feminine type generally, but not in those who are dark and of masculine appearance.”

  It wasn’t until the latter half of the seventeenth century, however, that the first truly scientific account of female ejaculation would be presented, this by a Dutch gynecologist named Reinier de Graaf, distinguishing precisely between vaginal lubrication, which accompanies arousal and facilitates intercourse, and female ejaculation, which is tantamount to seminal emission. “This liquid was clearly not designed by Nature to moisten the urethra (as some people think),” wrote de Graaf, describing the “pituito-serous juice” sometimes excreted around the time of female orgasm. “The ducts [from which they arise] are so placed at the outlet of the urethra that the liquid does not touch it as it rushes out.”

  Fast-forward to 1952, past the historical hordes of women secretly ejaculating in mass confusion, and we arrive at the offices of the German-born gynecologist Ernst Gräfenberg (curious how there were so many men in this profession), who, while the contributions of de Graaf and others are often overlooked, is credited with “discovering” an erotic zone on the anterior wall of the vagina running along the course of the urethra. Ernst, in other words, is the one who first christened the “G-spot” with his article “The Role of Urethra in Female Orgasm.” In their review of his discovery, Korda and her colleagues report how Gräfenberg observed masturbating women (presumably in his office) expelling fluids from their urethra with orgasm “in gushes.” Since this never occurred at the beginning of sexual stimulation, but rather only at the acme of orgasm, the physician concluded that its purpose was more for pleasure than for lubrication. “In the cases observed,” wrote Gräfenberg, “the fluid was examined and it had no urinary character. I am inclined to believe that ‘urine’ reported to be expelled during female orgasm is not urine, but only secretions of the intraurethral glands correlated with the erotogenic zone along the urethra in the anterior vaginal wall.”

  It wasn’t until 1982, in fact, that female ejaculate was first analyzed in terms of its chemical properties. If it’s not urine, and it’s not semen, then what, exactly, is it? After all, according to one study published by Amy Gilliland, most female ejaculators report “copious” amounts of fluid being released around the time of orgasm, enough to “soak the bed” or “spray the wall.” So it’s rather odd that we still don’t have a name for this substance that at least 40 percent of women produce liberally at least once in their lives. (One especially clever reader suggested it be named “ejillculate,” which I do like.)

  Nearly all studies have shown a chemical dissimilarity b
etween urine and female ejaculate—in fact, there are commonalities with male seminal fluid. You might recall from our previous discussion of male semen that only a small portion of that fluid contains sperm cells; the rest is a batter of psychotropic concoctions. Yet for many women, urine isn’t entirely absent from the emission, either. Most female ejaculators, left to their own devices and without access to scientific information, describe their own explorations of the mysterious material. Some describe it as thick and viscous, or salty, others as watery and odorless. “No research has been done in this area for over 20 years,” laments Gilliland, “and we still do not have an answer satisfying to most sexologists as to what female ejaculate fluid is or where it is manufactured.”

  Part of the trouble in investigating the phenomenon under properly controlled scientific conditions, however, is the fact that it doesn’t particularly lend itself to laboratory investigations. According to most women, they need to be intensely aroused, as well as very relaxed, to ejaculate. So, although the clearest picture of what’s happening down there would come from rigorous studies, the trouble is that subjecting self-reported female ejaculators to a barrage of invasive electromyographic laboratory techniques designed to stimulate their clitoris and evoke ejaculation kind of kills the mood. This is something that a team of Egyptian researchers learned the hard way. After attaching multiple electrodes to the genitals of thirty-eight healthy young women, as well as using vaginal and uterine balloons to measure pressure, and then stimulating the women to orgasm using electrovibration, they didn’t find a drop of ejaculate, only vaginal lubrication. They could only surmise that foreplay might have done the trick. By contrast, although it involved another very small sample size, a team of Czechs did manage to evoke “female urethral expulsions” in ten women under laboratory conditions back in 1988, but these women, unlike those in the Egyptian study, had a self-reported history of frequent ejaculation.

  In many ways, then, our best understanding to date of female ejaculation comes from the reports of female ejaculators themselves. But we do know from the chemical assays at least this: although it may have traces of urea, female ejaculate is obviously not urine. Many of the women interviewed by Gilliland recounted that after several humiliating episodes at this unexpected outburst of fluid, they’d since taken to voiding their bladders before having sex, yet still they ejaculated prodigiously. In fact, six of the thirteen women in the study had never even heard of female ejaculation prior to reading the study description; they just assumed they were “abnormal.”

  For most ejaculators, it doesn’t happen every time an orgasm occurs. But this is in stark contrast to William Masters and Virginia Johnson’s dubious 1966 assertion that female ejaculation is only an urban legend. Although some women were fortunate enough to find partners who enjoyed their ejaculations—partners would be right to assume, after all, that they’re triumphant lovers if they can actually bring a woman to ejaculate—most had, at least at first, felt deep shame. In some cases, this translated to self-imposed celibacy and, not surprisingly, strained relationships. Education can change lives, even save marriages. One participant in Gilliland’s study described the transformation in her husband after he understood that her ejaculation was a sign of her extraordinary sexual arousal: “Before he’d say, ‘I don’t want pee on me,’ or ‘Can’t you go to the bathroom before sex?’ Now he feels it’s attractive and he’ll say, ‘Squirt me!’”

  The good news is that many women note that they conceptualize their ejaculations in increasingly positive and empowering ways over the course of their lives. I’m very sympathetic to Gilliland’s position when she concludes that “overall, it is the effect of ignorance about female ejaculation that should arouse us to action, not just scientific curiosity.” I don’t think that was an intentional pun on her part, by the way, but you do see how difficult it is to avoid them sometimes. Yet still, and please don’t call me callous, I’m left enormously curious about the science. Why do only some women ejaculate and not others? What, if any, was the role of female ejaculation in human evolution? And why—just look at you now—is it such a giggle-inducing, fetishistic topic to some? Science has a long, wet, slippery challenge ahead indeed.

  Studying the Elusive “Fag Hag”: Women Who Like Men Who Like Men

  As a decades-long fan of The Golden Girls, I was saddened to learn of the death of Rue McClanahan in June 2010. In fact, I think I genuinely shed a palpable, detectable tear, which is something I can’t remember ever doing on the death of a celebrity, with the exception perhaps of Bea Arthur and Estelle Getty. It sounds rather homosexually clichéd, I know, but my partner, Juan, and I have gotten into the habit of watching an episode of The Golden Girls every night before bed. And along with the other “girls,” as we call them, McClanahan’s character, Blanche Devereaux—the sassy southern belle with an insatiable appetite for rich cheesecake and rich men—has become something of an imaginary, smile-inducing friend in our home. Fortunately, Blanche’s carnal spirit is burned forever on our DVDs. Yes, I know, I’m so gay.

  The news of McClanahan’s death inspired me to read more about her in real life—well, at least to expend enough finger energy to flitter over to her Wikipedia entry. I knew she’d been an outspoken advocate of gays and lesbians, as well as animals, but I didn’t realize that her support for the former went all the way back to 1971. Just two short years after the Stonewall riots, she costarred in a movie set in a Greenwich gay bar called Some of My Best Friends Are…, and she just so happened to play a “vicious fag hag.”

  And then my mind switched gears, leaving the inimitable Rue and the issue of gay rights behind and instead focusing my attention on this term, fag hag. Now, I’ve never seen myself as a “fag”—although I’m sure many other people see me this way and unfortunately nothing more—but more important, I’ve certainly never regarded my many close female friends as “hags.” So I was curious to learn more about the unflattering stereotypes lying at the etymological root of this moniker, which describes straight women who tend to gravitate toward gay men. Enter the psychologist Nancy Bartlett and her colleagues, who published the first quantitative study of “fag hags” in the journal Body Image.

  These researchers, too, found the term intriguing. There are plenty of other colorful expressions that capture this distinct demographic rather vividly, some less insultingly so than others, including:

  • Fruit fly

  • Queen bee

  • Queer dear

  • Fairy godmother

  • Fag shagger

  • Queen magnet

  • Hag along

  • Swish dish

  • Faggotina

  • Homo honey

  • Fairy collector

  • Fairy princess

  • Fagnet

  But it’s “fag hag” that resonates in the public consciousness. The researchers note that in both popular media and everyday expression, the term stirs up in most people’s minds the image of an unattractive, overweight, desperate woman who seeks out the company of gay men to compensate for her lack of romantic attention from straight guys. Sorting through anecdotes from previous research, television, and cheap romance novels, the authors find that other common stereotypes paint the fag hag as being notoriously camp, overly emotional, unstable, and craving attention (think Megan Mullally’s character Karen Walker from Will & Grace). What’s especially fascinating is the authors’ observation that this social category of women who like men who like men may be “cross-culturally robust”: the French, they note, refer to such women as soeurettes (little sisters), the Germans brand them Schwulenmuttis (gay moms), and the Mexicans know them as joteras (jota is commonly used for “fag”). In Japan, these women are called okoge, translated literally as “the burned rice that sticks to the bottom of the pot.”

  According to the investigators, the “hag” component is essentially the common belief that these women “do not feel good about their bodies, and as a result, take refuge in the ‘gay world’ to
avoid the harsher judgment and emphasis on female physical attractiveness inherent in the heterosexual social scene.” The comedienne Margaret Cho, a well-known and self-proclaimed “fag hag,” states: “The gay man in your life is not concerned with your youth and beauty. He wants to know your soul. He loves you for your courage and intellect. Whether you are lovely or plain, you are beautiful to him for these qualities—and many more.”

  As “the gay man” in many women’s lives, I’m not sure Cho’s got it entirely right about us; she seems to be idealizing gay men. There’s certainly no shortage of vacuous, superficial gay men out there. She’s also apparently never heard of the biologist John Maynard Smith’s “sneaky fucker” evolutionary hypothesis for male homosexuality, which posits that gay men in the ancestral past had unique access to the reproductive niche because females let their guards down around them and other males didn’t view them as sexual competitors. We’re not infertile, after all, just gay. And stranger things have happened—especially when you toss some gin into the mix.