men come, women arrive

[jporter]

            	20th Annual Conference

   Society for Literature, Science and the Arts


                             EVOLUTION:

          BIOLOGICAL, CULTURAL, AND COSMIC

             New York, NY, November 9-12, 2006


             http://www.dactyl.org/SLSA.htm


 From the Plenary Speaker:

	Lynn Margulis. Her publications, spanning a wide
	range of scientific topics, include original contribu-
	tions to cell biology and microbial evolution. She is
	best known for her theory of symbiogenesis, which
	challenges a central tenet of neodarwinism. She
	argues that inherited variation, significant in evol-
	ution, does not come mainly from random mutations.
	Rather new tissues, organs, and even new species
	evolve primarily through the long-lasting intimacy of
	strangers.The fusion of genomes in symbioses
	followed by natural selection, she suggests, leads to
	increasingly complex levels of individuality.


Although "the call for papers" is officially closed (April 15, 2006),
I hope someone has had the good sense to propose a session
on the vexing vagaries of the female orgasm, a controversial
topic not well explained by natural selection (though not for
lack of trying). It sits at the very nexus of biology and culture. Its
biological/evolutionary necessity is at least questionable. Is it just
a biological artifact like the appendix? On the other hand, its
cultural significance, while undeniable, is a a topic often woefully
misunderstood- and misconstrued- by authors, especially men- e.g.:

	She told him later that as soon as he took her
	wrist that night, she came. And the first time he
	touched her cunt, squeezed Jessica's soft cunt
	through her knickers, the trembling began again
	high in her thighs, growing, taking her over. She
	came twice before cock was ever officially put
	inside cunt, and this is important to both of them
	though neither has figured out why, exactly.

If only some rational scientific-type were available to shed
a little light on this slippery topic, which has plagued us all-
one way or another- since Jack first spied Jill. The conference
would seem an ideal venue to probe this thorny area. But wait...
There is Elisabeth Lloyd:

http://mypage.iu.edu/~ealloyd/

Her book,
	
	The Case Of The Female Orgasm:
	Bias In The Science Of Evolution

seems quite germane:

http://mypage.iu.edu/%7Eealloyd/Reviews.html

Might even help undress the mystery of whether or not
the female orgasm provides a reproductive advantage, or,
whether all the writhing and moaning is just an artifact
of natural selection on males, with a vestigial effect on
females, analogous to tits on a bull.

jody

	"Oh- you'd have no choice. You'd have to come." He
	was smiling.

	She moved her pretty jaw a little forward. "I wouldn't
	come."

	"Then a man in a uniform, with a big pistol, would
	make you come."

...and drivin' six white hawses, indeed. Although, at this stage
of the game, some might be a little more than white. We'll
have to check the DNA to be sure. Anyway, big pistols might
defend the borders of the homeland, but keepin' the residents
smilin'  might require a different, more nuanced approach, one
that accepts the importance of  "the long-lasting intimacy of
strangers,"  rather than just the survival of those quickest on the 
draw.