female homosexuality

These thoughts come from an extension of a class I’m taking called “human social and sexual behavior.”

When human females orgasm, the back of the vagina lowers, allowing semen to pool. The cervical tent then contracts, dipping down into the pool of semen, drawing semen into the uterus, almost like a drinking straw, which increases the probability of conception.

When there is no semen present,the cervical tent draws up vaginal secretions into the uterus, acidifying it. This acidic environment is harmful to sperm, and the effect can last for several days. We can therefore assume that the female organism, when sperm is not present decreases the probability of conception at some later point.

You might expect that this would be disadvantageous to all, because if you decrease the probability of conception and of having offspring, you risk not spreading your design information, which is the ultimate goal of an organism’s proximate behaviors.

However, consider, that any child born of sexual reproduction is only 50% related to yourself. Therefore, in order to maximize the spread of genetic information, any organism would want to make sure their children are as fit (in the Darwinian sense) and successful as possible.

There are times when a mothering a child would be disadvantageous. For example, in a harsh environment, a mother will have to share resources with her child. When resources are scarce, this threatens the survival of both mother and child. Clearly, it would be bad to invest resources into a child, only to have both the mother and child die. In this case, the mothers design information would die with her. If a mother can delay childbirth to times when resources are plentiful, she can increase the chance of survival.

Now, especially in matrilineal human societies, there could be a conflict of interest between male and female partners. Males, who don’t necessarily expend as much resource looking after children, at least in comparison to the mother, could want to try reproduce, independent of resource availability.

Here’s where female homosexuality comes in. Females in a human ‘village’ have mutual interest, in that in a non-kin dependent social cooperating society, they would want all women in the village to be successful in childrearing.

If they can, by engaging in homosexual activities, give each other orgasms and increase the chances of delaying pregnancy during extended harsh conditions, then they would all benefit.

Of course, this speculation of mine wouldn’t make much sense for regular cyclic seasonal things, but more likely for longer periods of environmental stress, or perhaps during long migrations.

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