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The female orgasm might have evolved as part of a biological mechanism to induce ovulation, according to findings published yesterday (September 30) in PNAS. The study shows that female rabbits treated with antidepressants that suppress orgasms in humans release fewer eggs than normal during sex, pointing to a possible evolutionary explanation for where the phenomenon came from.
Female orgasm isn’t necessary for reproduction, but the complexity of the neural and hormonal responses underlying it suggest an evolutionarily ancient origin—leaving researchers to puzzle over why it’s present in humans at all.
To explore whether it might be an evolutionary throwback, the researchers turned to rabbits, which exhibit what’s known as copulation-induced ovulation, meaning that they release eggs when stimulated by sex, instead of ovulating cyclically as humans do. The researchers treated 12 female rabbits with a two-week course of fluoxetine (best known by the market name Prozac), ...
