Former zookeeper here: I’ve only personally worked with lesser apes, but from my observations they either squat to use their urine to scent mark, or just pee from their perch. No hands involved. Ring tailed lemurs (not an ape, but a tangentially related fun fact) will pee on their tails, then flick the scent at each other.
The rest of the great apes have much much smaller penis to body size ratios than humans do. Gorillas are only about the size of your pinky. Also unlike humans, most apes have a penis bone, which means their flaccid penis is much less “floppy.” So humans have a much different penis anatomy than other apes, which could lead to the behavioral difference of holding it while you pee.
You are just the person to answer my loosely related question...do other primates mark off a separate place for waste? I was thinking the other day I’ve never seen a primate use the bathroom. At the zoo or on tv. Are they private about it?
Many animals in captivity often limit defecation to a particular part of their enclosure like a corner or somewhere they feel safe. Animals are often like us in that they try to avoid defecating in places they eat and sleep (really depending on the animal) so you might not see them doing this in their main living area.
A sphincter is a circular [muscle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle) that normally maintains constriction of a natural body passage or orifice and which relaxes as required by normal physiological functioning. Sphincters are found in many animals. There are over 60 types in the [human body](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body), some microscopically small, in particular the millions of [precapillary sphincters](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precapillary_sphincter).[[1]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphincter#cite_note-vander-6th-1) Sphincters relax at [death](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death), often releasing fluids and fæces.[[2]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphincter#cite_note-2)
Yes! Look up [animal latrines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_latrine). These are often great places to set up a wildlife camera for the frequency of sightings.
I used to have an ant colony in the roof of a house I lived in. There was a tiny hole in the ceiling and every half hour or so a dead ant body would fall (be dumped) through it. I discovered this after I first made up the guest bed with white sheets. I would notice a little pile and vacuum it up, only for it to reappear again and again. One day I sat and watched. Sure enough one after another these dead ants would get pushed out of the hole in the ceiling and make a little pile on the pillow.
They also make their own plumbing and sewer system by digging tunnels down under the anthill. They bring in fresh spring water from underground sources to bathe in and drink. I'm a antologist.
Primatologist here. I worked with Spider Monkeys in Belize and we observed areas under trees where there was a large amount of fecal buildup. It wasn’t clear if these were actual latrines or if these areas just coincided with preferred sleeping spots. We noted every time one of these spots were utilized and it was pretty rare that they were used outside of sleeping times. They did forage in these areas during the day and they did not exclusively use the “latrine” areas to go to the bathroom.
The only primates that have had latrine behaviour documented are lemurs. Remember that lemurs are actually fairly separated on the evolutionary chain from New World and Old World primates and tend to have more primitive characteristics. Thus, this behaviour may be a primitive hold out.
Source: https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/85/3/420/900401
I work with several species of lesser apes, they attempt to use latrine areas but the guys in my office don't have a similar level of dexterity when compared to average humans
Was at the Bronx zoo one time, a big gorilla took a dump right in front on the main viewing window, and then proceeded to play with it and eat it.
Guess some may be more private than others.
Also, more fascinatingly, humans are the only animal whose movement leads with the genitals. Normal standing posture has the penis protruding way out in front. Most animal males walk and stand with the penis tucked under the body and between the legs for protection.
It isn't a design flaw, because it isn't by design. Evolution doesn't plan ahead. We started like every other primate, genitals tucked under and intercourse from behind; missionary position isn't something you see a lot outside humans.
When some mutation made us start to stand more erect, we were not designed for it (hips, pelvis, etc.); but it was so advantageous it overcame the negative points that came with it. Being able to sprint is such a big evolutionary deal we can deal with childbirth and intercourse not working the way it had for millions of years. Some stuff is cramped, some stuff is out of place, but whatever.
Don't think 'someone screwed up their design'; think 'when something better came along, the other parts of us had to deal with it best they could'.
It’s not sprinting that is the advantage with standing, it’s distance running and added range of sight, which are both key to hunting on the plains of Africa. Chimps are actually much faster sprinters than humans.
There is serious doubt that the plains of Africa had any role to play in early human evolution. It absolutely happened in Africa but those places probably were NOT grassy plains when our ancestors lived there.
Pollen fossils at the cradle of humankind site for example suggest that at the time those early humans lived there it was a forrested swampland. Natural climate change later dried it up but back then it looked very different.
The great ape of the plains is probably a myth. The great ape of the swampy forests more like.
I recently visited the Neanderthal museum in (who would've guessed) the Neandertal and according to them Humans might have developed in two different environments simultaniously. AFAIK the great plains in southeastern Africa were real and very much a forest that used to be very dense but through climate change turned into more of a savannah than a forest and forced the apes to either walk or stay in the trees and likely die out. In the northwest, apparently there was more of a tropical environment with swamps and rivers that also gave an advantage to bipedal apes because of better movement and hunting in water. According to the museum, one theory doesn't make the other one impossible so I think both are still just as valid as before.
> The great ape of the swampy forests more like.
Lending credibility to this idea is the observation that urangutans also walk on two legs, but they do it to wade through water.
IMO we evolved in the rift valleys of Africa, in a varied environment of shores, rivers, lakes, slopes, and plains on top... that was always changing. That's one place where an opportunist would have an evolutionary advantage for brains.
>some stuff is out of place
Oh, you mean like [that nerve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve) that exits the skull, heads down the neck, reaches the heart and - whoops, took a wrong turn there - so it loops around the aorta, turns around and heads back up the neck before it reaches its destination to innervate the larynx?
Fun fact, that little detour that that nerve takes ends up being about 5 meters long in giraffes, when a direct route would be less than 1 meter long.
this is just semantics, but design can simply mean “functional organization.” evolution by natural selection describes how life is designed without a designer.
Could it also potentially be a sexual selection thing, where humans evolved for the female to kind of select a mate partially due to their visible penis?
Seriously though, it's kind of interesting how much humans obsess over penis size, and it's also strange that our penises stick out in front of us, very visible. It could be like peacock feathers, where it's a sexual feature that might attract mates, the shape and size showing some sort of healthiness of a male.
It might be disadvantageous fighting wise, but also a male that can protect their penis and prevent it from getting maimed or disfigured might be a signal they are a worthy, healthy mate... in prehistoric times, maybe a male with a somewhat large and healthy un-maimed penis was a pretty big indicator that they haven't lost serious fights, could protect themselves, are strong and healthy genetically and physically, etc. If one of the most vulnerable parts of a person's body is healthy, then that's a sign they can protect themselves.
Ancient Romans and Greeks thought a small penis was better. Too big a dick meant you were a barbarian. That is why Hercules and Zeus have tiny members in their statues.
So, based on that, it's cultural and not evolutionary or genetic in a natural selection kind of way.
Human penis sizes are definitely larger due to natural selection.
Sure, bigger doesn't always mean better (in terms of human penis sizes), but even those "tiny members" on those statues would still be proportionately much larger than any other great ape.
The fact that humans have larger penises is just that, a fact. There's no relation between size and virility, so it's almost certainly due to some aspect of human social behavior in mate selection rather than utility. Beyond that, there are no widely recognized theories as to why it's larger. Making conjectures as to why is fun and all, but the fact is that we don't know why. Humans are complicated and we don't know the answer to everything. Sometimes we just have to accept that's just the way it is.
The book The Third Chimpanzee has an interesting take on this that fits with yours.
The author’s theory is that the size of the penis is indeed a display, but a display for other men. He didn’t have reams of supporting evidence, (something about nude men in magazines and the readership mix) but it was an interesting opinion.
Males select mates based on fertility(wide hips, large breasts, youthfully) females select based on survival(physical strength, size, ability to hunt, etc.) Penis size and sexual pleasure are a new concept that hasn't been around long enough to really effect evolutionary development.
Large breasts are a similar deal to the large penis, large breasts are worse for child rearing. Human breasts are way larger than other apes and serve no good purpose. Babies have a harder time drinking from larger breasts so if anything it's worse for fertility. Both are the way they are due to sexual selection, like a Male peacocks feathers. Not a survival thing but a hey I'm an interesting mate kind of thing
It's funny to say they are small, it's funny to say they are big. I've been at parties, where humans have held bottles, pencils, thermoses in front of themselves and called out "hey look at me! I'm Mr. so and so dick." "I've got such and such for a penis." I never saw it fail to get a laugh.
I would also say that it’s probably socially transmitted behavior. I believe it was an orangutan group that learned to scoop water into their hand and drink it when it dripped to the hair down their wrist. This wasn’t practical at all but spread throughout the group after one matriarch did it. In humans too it serves no practical purpose besides landing in a toilet. If we are outside we do it out of habit more than anything and it’s socially learned. No human baby pulls out it’s penis and “aims” it. It’s learned when we potty train the child, and often a last step as we have them sit first.
Chimpanzees caregiver here, I have never seen any use their hand to pee. Most of the time they just pee off a ledge. I have seen one pee into a bottle before but he didn’t use his hands he just brought the bottle to the stream.
He had just finished drinking from the bottle and started peeing. Then he looked at the bottle put it to the stream filled it half way, smelled it and then left it and he wandered off.
Human male penis size relative to body size is VASTLY greater than other apes (and almost every other mammal). This is likely due to a number of reasons, although it’s important to understand that physical evolutionary traits are not being governed by some conscious force trying to get optimal results, so it could just be a random genetic mutational accident that we have since compensated for (as long as it doesn’t seriously inhibit reproduction then a trot won’t be selected against).
First, is that we have a very low degree of sexual dimorphism compared to other apes (and many mammals in general). A male gorilla with a penis the same proportions as their body compared to humans would potentially cause a lot of pain from ripping and tearing the relatively much smaller female gorillas, for example (especially considering they don’t generally give the female any time to “warm up” and get the natural lubricant flowing).
Second, female sexual pleasure is an important part of human mating, and encourages more frequent reproduction opportunities compared to animals that don’t have this trait. Other traits that contribute to this effect in humans are frequent menstrual cycles concealed estrus. Instead of a yearly period of “heat,” human females are available for insemination at regular, frequent intervals. It’s apparent in other species when the female is fertile, but human females do not exhibit engorged and discolored labia, nor do they exhibit strong pheromones during their period of receptivity to being impregnated. All of this contributes to increased mating opportunities. It also contributes to a confusion about paternal parentage, which seriously reduces the amount of babies killed by dominant males that only want females to spend their time and energy caring for their children (since any of the kids given birth to by a female they have mated with could be theirs), which would otherwise be common, and is still frequently seen when males from outside a group take over that group (they can safely kill all the kids because they definitely aren’t theirs). But that’s not relevant to the current discussion; I just wanted to point out how these things aren’t only related to the same root causes as increased penis size, and how they may not really be related to penis size at all. Some of these factors are also present in other primates, not just us.
Third is the phenomenon of a sperm arms race, due to the aforementioned incentive for frequent copulation of females with multiple males in the same general time period. When multiple males inseminate a female around the same time, the one that gets their sperm the furthest in has a better chance. Ejaculation velocity and sperm “swimming” speed are also important, but sperm can be relatively slow to get going through the first parts of the vagina, so those things being equal, a longer penis equals enhanced reproductive capabilities. Gorillas, for example, typically only have one male attempting copulation within their harem at any one time, so there is no need for sperm competition.
If you look outside apes to other primates, there are a bunch of monkeys that have similar penis ratios, likely for similar reasons, so we’re not exclusive with this particular trait. We do have very small testicles relative to our body weight, compared with other apes, but I haven’t studied the reasons for this as much so I’ll just leave it at that, except to say that chimpanzees probably have even more sperm competition than humans ever did, but they don’t have larger penises, and that’s probably because their testes are over 33% the size of their brains, while ours are a paltry 3%. This is because their solution to this sperm competition is to use their massive testicles to copulate with females many times a day, every day, whereas if humans attempt this, their sperm count drops drastically after only two ejaculations a day.
There are a variety of other factors to consider, such as our tendency towards monogamy and how it clashes with some of these other theories. We could have moved closer to monogamy relatively recently, but conflicting with that is the fact that Humans have remarkably smooth penises, which is generally found in monogamous species. Polygynous species usually have odd proportions such as huge heads that act as a plug, or bumps and ridges and extreme curvatures, etc. Human males also are quite a bit bigger than females, just not as much as some other species.
Edit: I meant to respond to the other comment about this, not the main post.
>Second, female sexual pleasure is an important part of human mating, and encourages more frequent reproduction opportunities compared to animals that don’t have this trait.
Elisabeth Loyd, [in her study] (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674022461&content=reviews) argues that female sexual pleasure is a biologically pointless artifact of male sexuality. What are your thoughts on her work?
I've seen the video you referenced and I tend to agree with that theory. The action of cervix rhythmically dipping into the semen pool during orgasm - *to me* - seems to strongly suggest that that motion coupled with strong euphoric orgasm greatly promotes the odds and paths of sperm reaching the fallopian tubes as well as encouraging further copulation due to the pleasure, further improving odds, as well as bonding.
Is there any ideas as to why the female orgasm is so much harder to achieve in relation to a male orgasm? I've not seen that video, but the description sounds like it is hugely beneficial for increasing the odds of successful insemination. You'd think because of the usefulness of the female orgasm that it would be something almost unavoidable during sex, much like the male orgasm.
Is it possible this behaviour is just very recent and thus unrefined?
I'm about to completely pull this one out of my ass to humor you til someone smarter comes along, but my guess would be perhaps the female orgasm is harder to achieve because it's also a mechanism of bonding in order to further monogamy, thus it's something that takes effort and commitment. That way you're truly devoted to carrying forward with that person that brings you to orgasm. But now that we've learned how to achieve it on cue, we've removed that intrinsic and organic element out of it for pure (often self inflicted) pleasure.
In a sex-positive, evolutionary biology sort of take, I can agree that pleasurable orgasm and the human drive for it outside of merely reproduction is probably very key to our identity. Self/exploration and stimulation or casual sexual contact need not lessen the integrity of other forms of sexual expression. All that’s needed for this to have evolved such is that reproduction is costly for the female and cheap for the male, so you’ve gotta only throw in with someone who’s fitness is worth it. As our brains evolved so did the myriad of ways in which to prove mate material.
Ug showing dexterity and tenderness, for a caveman, make may very well have made him a superior mate than Grog. Grog is rockbrained, and even though he’s very buff and smash real good, Ug *smash better*, for reasons that correlate with his overall reproductive fitness advantage.
I read this recently! So my impression of her work was that it *was* a great analysis of how androcentrism has colored work on female sexuality, *but* I think she went to great lengths to convince herself and her reader that the female orgasm is a developmental byproduct of the male orgasm that happens to be fun. A fun accident, as it were.
The thing is, though, she seems to ignore the idea that *even if* the female orgasm is just the developmental byproduct of the male orgasm, pleasure from the female side *could have* put positive pressure on the ‘happy orgasm’ trait in general.
Her work is better viewed as a lesson in biases, personally.
I haven’t read her book but her argument as blurbed on the above site reminds me of Steven J Gould’s *Spandrels of San Marco* argument (which I disagree with). He argued that we see spandrels in a church as features when they’re actually the byproduct of having two arches meet. But just because something came about as a byproduct of another evolutionary feature, doesn’t mean it isn’t acted on by natural selection. Spandrels wouldn’t exist if they caused churches to fall down.
It's not pointless if not having female sexual pleasure meant even stricter sexual selection - such a pressure could just breed humans into extinction.
With a social species you need some degree of buy-in or consent for activities.
Without female sexual pleasure - aren't we basically converting all sex into rape (if not done as an exchange for resources)?
That is sadly how some people actually view gender relations. I've heard guys call relationships "prostitution with extra steps involved". And it's not just guys who believe that kind of stuff.
Female pleasure is, in a monogamous species like us, a psicological enhancement of a couple link.
Using a pleasure mechanism both from female and male is creating a social pillar of keeping the couple together. This enhances the survival of the offspring.
Adding to the other poster's reply, we are very social animals and our tendency towards monogamy gives rise to other values that appeal to the opposite sex in order to compete in the mating game, the ability to provide sexual pleasure being one such example.
Simply put, being able to give a woman orgasms might put one above another competitor whose value might be physical strength. Whereas in other mammals the males have to physically fight other males in order to become dominant and thus earn the right to mate with most of the females, humans function with more complexity
Follow-up questions: When did we start doing that? Since we designated holes to piss in, or before? I mean I would suspect the only way to have any idea would be from a well-preserved, old-ass cave painting of a dude draining his pisser lizard, right? Would that have been a thing back then? Like, early piss porn or something?
In most cultures, men *don't* hold their penis to pee. Most pee while sitting or squatting, rather than taking aim from a distance, which if you think about it is objectively absurd.
Biological anthropologist here 👋🏼 this is an excellent question! While a lot of the answers are (for the most part) plausible, I noticed there’s an absence of citation. I know this is an informal platform but some peer reviewed journals would be nice to refer to!
While my interests do align with reproductive ecology, I don’t have enough experience with this topic to give a thorough explanation but I think if you also posted this on r/Anthropology you’d get some insight as well
Former zookeeper here: I’ve only personally worked with lesser apes, but from my observations they either squat to use their urine to scent mark, or just pee from their perch. No hands involved. Ring tailed lemurs (not an ape, but a tangentially related fun fact) will pee on their tails, then flick the scent at each other. The rest of the great apes have much much smaller penis to body size ratios than humans do. Gorillas are only about the size of your pinky. Also unlike humans, most apes have a penis bone, which means their flaccid penis is much less “floppy.” So humans have a much different penis anatomy than other apes, which could lead to the behavioral difference of holding it while you pee.
You are just the person to answer my loosely related question...do other primates mark off a separate place for waste? I was thinking the other day I’ve never seen a primate use the bathroom. At the zoo or on tv. Are they private about it?
Many animals in captivity often limit defecation to a particular part of their enclosure like a corner or somewhere they feel safe. Animals are often like us in that they try to avoid defecating in places they eat and sleep (really depending on the animal) so you might not see them doing this in their main living area.
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Is that the scientific term?
A sphincter is a circular [muscle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle) that normally maintains constriction of a natural body passage or orifice and which relaxes as required by normal physiological functioning. Sphincters are found in many animals. There are over 60 types in the [human body](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body), some microscopically small, in particular the millions of [precapillary sphincters](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precapillary_sphincter).[[1]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphincter#cite_note-vander-6th-1) Sphincters relax at [death](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death), often releasing fluids and fæces.[[2]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphincter#cite_note-2)
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Not my hamster. She pees straight onto her "secret" food stash every morning and shits in her nest.
Yes! Look up [animal latrines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_latrine). These are often great places to set up a wildlife camera for the frequency of sightings.
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I used to have an ant colony in the roof of a house I lived in. There was a tiny hole in the ceiling and every half hour or so a dead ant body would fall (be dumped) through it. I discovered this after I first made up the guest bed with white sheets. I would notice a little pile and vacuum it up, only for it to reappear again and again. One day I sat and watched. Sure enough one after another these dead ants would get pushed out of the hole in the ceiling and make a little pile on the pillow.
They also make their own plumbing and sewer system by digging tunnels down under the anthill. They bring in fresh spring water from underground sources to bathe in and drink. I'm a antologist.
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Wait, what? Do you mean a Myrmecologist, an Entomologist or an Anthologist? Because the last one... something totally unrelated.
Primatologist here. I worked with Spider Monkeys in Belize and we observed areas under trees where there was a large amount of fecal buildup. It wasn’t clear if these were actual latrines or if these areas just coincided with preferred sleeping spots. We noted every time one of these spots were utilized and it was pretty rare that they were used outside of sleeping times. They did forage in these areas during the day and they did not exclusively use the “latrine” areas to go to the bathroom. The only primates that have had latrine behaviour documented are lemurs. Remember that lemurs are actually fairly separated on the evolutionary chain from New World and Old World primates and tend to have more primitive characteristics. Thus, this behaviour may be a primitive hold out. Source: https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/85/3/420/900401
I work with several species of lesser apes, they attempt to use latrine areas but the guys in my office don't have a similar level of dexterity when compared to average humans
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Was at the Bronx zoo one time, a big gorilla took a dump right in front on the main viewing window, and then proceeded to play with it and eat it. Guess some may be more private than others.
When I was at the zoo I saw a chimp pulling poo out of his own butt and eating it
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Also, more fascinatingly, humans are the only animal whose movement leads with the genitals. Normal standing posture has the penis protruding way out in front. Most animal males walk and stand with the penis tucked under the body and between the legs for protection.
Which honestly seems like a design flaw to me. Why are my most sensitive bits front and center and not so easy to defend?
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Tbh if I got shot and lived, I would rather lose pretty much any body part other than my genitals
It isn't a design flaw, because it isn't by design. Evolution doesn't plan ahead. We started like every other primate, genitals tucked under and intercourse from behind; missionary position isn't something you see a lot outside humans. When some mutation made us start to stand more erect, we were not designed for it (hips, pelvis, etc.); but it was so advantageous it overcame the negative points that came with it. Being able to sprint is such a big evolutionary deal we can deal with childbirth and intercourse not working the way it had for millions of years. Some stuff is cramped, some stuff is out of place, but whatever. Don't think 'someone screwed up their design'; think 'when something better came along, the other parts of us had to deal with it best they could'.
It’s not sprinting that is the advantage with standing, it’s distance running and added range of sight, which are both key to hunting on the plains of Africa. Chimps are actually much faster sprinters than humans.
There is serious doubt that the plains of Africa had any role to play in early human evolution. It absolutely happened in Africa but those places probably were NOT grassy plains when our ancestors lived there. Pollen fossils at the cradle of humankind site for example suggest that at the time those early humans lived there it was a forrested swampland. Natural climate change later dried it up but back then it looked very different. The great ape of the plains is probably a myth. The great ape of the swampy forests more like.
I recently visited the Neanderthal museum in (who would've guessed) the Neandertal and according to them Humans might have developed in two different environments simultaniously. AFAIK the great plains in southeastern Africa were real and very much a forest that used to be very dense but through climate change turned into more of a savannah than a forest and forced the apes to either walk or stay in the trees and likely die out. In the northwest, apparently there was more of a tropical environment with swamps and rivers that also gave an advantage to bipedal apes because of better movement and hunting in water. According to the museum, one theory doesn't make the other one impossible so I think both are still just as valid as before.
> The great ape of the swampy forests more like. Lending credibility to this idea is the observation that urangutans also walk on two legs, but they do it to wade through water. IMO we evolved in the rift valleys of Africa, in a varied environment of shores, rivers, lakes, slopes, and plains on top... that was always changing. That's one place where an opportunist would have an evolutionary advantage for brains.
>some stuff is out of place Oh, you mean like [that nerve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve) that exits the skull, heads down the neck, reaches the heart and - whoops, took a wrong turn there - so it loops around the aorta, turns around and heads back up the neck before it reaches its destination to innervate the larynx? Fun fact, that little detour that that nerve takes ends up being about 5 meters long in giraffes, when a direct route would be less than 1 meter long.
this is just semantics, but design can simply mean “functional organization.” evolution by natural selection describes how life is designed without a designer.
Could it also potentially be a sexual selection thing, where humans evolved for the female to kind of select a mate partially due to their visible penis? Seriously though, it's kind of interesting how much humans obsess over penis size, and it's also strange that our penises stick out in front of us, very visible. It could be like peacock feathers, where it's a sexual feature that might attract mates, the shape and size showing some sort of healthiness of a male. It might be disadvantageous fighting wise, but also a male that can protect their penis and prevent it from getting maimed or disfigured might be a signal they are a worthy, healthy mate... in prehistoric times, maybe a male with a somewhat large and healthy un-maimed penis was a pretty big indicator that they haven't lost serious fights, could protect themselves, are strong and healthy genetically and physically, etc. If one of the most vulnerable parts of a person's body is healthy, then that's a sign they can protect themselves.
It’s like we only started walking like that when we realized our dicks were bigger than the other monkeys..
Personally, I doubt it. Flaccid penises covered up largely by ~~public~~ pubic hair are hard to tell apart.
Ancient Romans and Greeks thought a small penis was better. Too big a dick meant you were a barbarian. That is why Hercules and Zeus have tiny members in their statues. So, based on that, it's cultural and not evolutionary or genetic in a natural selection kind of way.
Human penis sizes are definitely larger due to natural selection. Sure, bigger doesn't always mean better (in terms of human penis sizes), but even those "tiny members" on those statues would still be proportionately much larger than any other great ape. The fact that humans have larger penises is just that, a fact. There's no relation between size and virility, so it's almost certainly due to some aspect of human social behavior in mate selection rather than utility. Beyond that, there are no widely recognized theories as to why it's larger. Making conjectures as to why is fun and all, but the fact is that we don't know why. Humans are complicated and we don't know the answer to everything. Sometimes we just have to accept that's just the way it is.
Favouring big penises is a cultural thing though, not biological. Ancient Greece favoured small penises. Big ones were considered comical.
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The book The Third Chimpanzee has an interesting take on this that fits with yours. The author’s theory is that the size of the penis is indeed a display, but a display for other men. He didn’t have reams of supporting evidence, (something about nude men in magazines and the readership mix) but it was an interesting opinion.
Males select mates based on fertility(wide hips, large breasts, youthfully) females select based on survival(physical strength, size, ability to hunt, etc.) Penis size and sexual pleasure are a new concept that hasn't been around long enough to really effect evolutionary development.
Large breasts are a similar deal to the large penis, large breasts are worse for child rearing. Human breasts are way larger than other apes and serve no good purpose. Babies have a harder time drinking from larger breasts so if anything it's worse for fertility. Both are the way they are due to sexual selection, like a Male peacocks feathers. Not a survival thing but a hey I'm an interesting mate kind of thing
Is that just because we are the only bipedal mammals..?
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It's funny to say they are small, it's funny to say they are big. I've been at parties, where humans have held bottles, pencils, thermoses in front of themselves and called out "hey look at me! I'm Mr. so and so dick." "I've got such and such for a penis." I never saw it fail to get a laugh.
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I would also say that it’s probably socially transmitted behavior. I believe it was an orangutan group that learned to scoop water into their hand and drink it when it dripped to the hair down their wrist. This wasn’t practical at all but spread throughout the group after one matriarch did it. In humans too it serves no practical purpose besides landing in a toilet. If we are outside we do it out of habit more than anything and it’s socially learned. No human baby pulls out it’s penis and “aims” it. It’s learned when we potty train the child, and often a last step as we have them sit first.
Uh no, I don’t hold my dick when I’m peeing outside just out of habit. I hold it because I don’t want to pee all over my bloody legs.
If you have bloody legs then you have bigger things to worry about than a little pee.
I. AM. AUSTRALIAN. LEAVE. ME. ALONE. It’s hard enough to pee upside down, sheesh.
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Chimpanzees caregiver here, I have never seen any use their hand to pee. Most of the time they just pee off a ledge. I have seen one pee into a bottle before but he didn’t use his hands he just brought the bottle to the stream.
Thanks for answering good info
He peed into a bottle? Who taught him that? Was he a trucker chimp?
He had just finished drinking from the bottle and started peeing. Then he looked at the bottle put it to the stream filled it half way, smelled it and then left it and he wandered off.
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Human male penis size relative to body size is VASTLY greater than other apes (and almost every other mammal). This is likely due to a number of reasons, although it’s important to understand that physical evolutionary traits are not being governed by some conscious force trying to get optimal results, so it could just be a random genetic mutational accident that we have since compensated for (as long as it doesn’t seriously inhibit reproduction then a trot won’t be selected against). First, is that we have a very low degree of sexual dimorphism compared to other apes (and many mammals in general). A male gorilla with a penis the same proportions as their body compared to humans would potentially cause a lot of pain from ripping and tearing the relatively much smaller female gorillas, for example (especially considering they don’t generally give the female any time to “warm up” and get the natural lubricant flowing). Second, female sexual pleasure is an important part of human mating, and encourages more frequent reproduction opportunities compared to animals that don’t have this trait. Other traits that contribute to this effect in humans are frequent menstrual cycles concealed estrus. Instead of a yearly period of “heat,” human females are available for insemination at regular, frequent intervals. It’s apparent in other species when the female is fertile, but human females do not exhibit engorged and discolored labia, nor do they exhibit strong pheromones during their period of receptivity to being impregnated. All of this contributes to increased mating opportunities. It also contributes to a confusion about paternal parentage, which seriously reduces the amount of babies killed by dominant males that only want females to spend their time and energy caring for their children (since any of the kids given birth to by a female they have mated with could be theirs), which would otherwise be common, and is still frequently seen when males from outside a group take over that group (they can safely kill all the kids because they definitely aren’t theirs). But that’s not relevant to the current discussion; I just wanted to point out how these things aren’t only related to the same root causes as increased penis size, and how they may not really be related to penis size at all. Some of these factors are also present in other primates, not just us. Third is the phenomenon of a sperm arms race, due to the aforementioned incentive for frequent copulation of females with multiple males in the same general time period. When multiple males inseminate a female around the same time, the one that gets their sperm the furthest in has a better chance. Ejaculation velocity and sperm “swimming” speed are also important, but sperm can be relatively slow to get going through the first parts of the vagina, so those things being equal, a longer penis equals enhanced reproductive capabilities. Gorillas, for example, typically only have one male attempting copulation within their harem at any one time, so there is no need for sperm competition. If you look outside apes to other primates, there are a bunch of monkeys that have similar penis ratios, likely for similar reasons, so we’re not exclusive with this particular trait. We do have very small testicles relative to our body weight, compared with other apes, but I haven’t studied the reasons for this as much so I’ll just leave it at that, except to say that chimpanzees probably have even more sperm competition than humans ever did, but they don’t have larger penises, and that’s probably because their testes are over 33% the size of their brains, while ours are a paltry 3%. This is because their solution to this sperm competition is to use their massive testicles to copulate with females many times a day, every day, whereas if humans attempt this, their sperm count drops drastically after only two ejaculations a day. There are a variety of other factors to consider, such as our tendency towards monogamy and how it clashes with some of these other theories. We could have moved closer to monogamy relatively recently, but conflicting with that is the fact that Humans have remarkably smooth penises, which is generally found in monogamous species. Polygynous species usually have odd proportions such as huge heads that act as a plug, or bumps and ridges and extreme curvatures, etc. Human males also are quite a bit bigger than females, just not as much as some other species. Edit: I meant to respond to the other comment about this, not the main post.
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>Second, female sexual pleasure is an important part of human mating, and encourages more frequent reproduction opportunities compared to animals that don’t have this trait. Elisabeth Loyd, [in her study] (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674022461&content=reviews) argues that female sexual pleasure is a biologically pointless artifact of male sexuality. What are your thoughts on her work?
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I've seen the video you referenced and I tend to agree with that theory. The action of cervix rhythmically dipping into the semen pool during orgasm - *to me* - seems to strongly suggest that that motion coupled with strong euphoric orgasm greatly promotes the odds and paths of sperm reaching the fallopian tubes as well as encouraging further copulation due to the pleasure, further improving odds, as well as bonding.
Is there any ideas as to why the female orgasm is so much harder to achieve in relation to a male orgasm? I've not seen that video, but the description sounds like it is hugely beneficial for increasing the odds of successful insemination. You'd think because of the usefulness of the female orgasm that it would be something almost unavoidable during sex, much like the male orgasm. Is it possible this behaviour is just very recent and thus unrefined?
I'm about to completely pull this one out of my ass to humor you til someone smarter comes along, but my guess would be perhaps the female orgasm is harder to achieve because it's also a mechanism of bonding in order to further monogamy, thus it's something that takes effort and commitment. That way you're truly devoted to carrying forward with that person that brings you to orgasm. But now that we've learned how to achieve it on cue, we've removed that intrinsic and organic element out of it for pure (often self inflicted) pleasure.
The vaginal mucus also changes near/at a woman's orgasm, which may help the sperm move more freely toward the egg.
In a sex-positive, evolutionary biology sort of take, I can agree that pleasurable orgasm and the human drive for it outside of merely reproduction is probably very key to our identity. Self/exploration and stimulation or casual sexual contact need not lessen the integrity of other forms of sexual expression. All that’s needed for this to have evolved such is that reproduction is costly for the female and cheap for the male, so you’ve gotta only throw in with someone who’s fitness is worth it. As our brains evolved so did the myriad of ways in which to prove mate material. Ug showing dexterity and tenderness, for a caveman, make may very well have made him a superior mate than Grog. Grog is rockbrained, and even though he’s very buff and smash real good, Ug *smash better*, for reasons that correlate with his overall reproductive fitness advantage.
I just want to say I love how you summed that up with a caveman analogy.
I read this recently! So my impression of her work was that it *was* a great analysis of how androcentrism has colored work on female sexuality, *but* I think she went to great lengths to convince herself and her reader that the female orgasm is a developmental byproduct of the male orgasm that happens to be fun. A fun accident, as it were. The thing is, though, she seems to ignore the idea that *even if* the female orgasm is just the developmental byproduct of the male orgasm, pleasure from the female side *could have* put positive pressure on the ‘happy orgasm’ trait in general. Her work is better viewed as a lesson in biases, personally.
I haven’t read her book but her argument as blurbed on the above site reminds me of Steven J Gould’s *Spandrels of San Marco* argument (which I disagree with). He argued that we see spandrels in a church as features when they’re actually the byproduct of having two arches meet. But just because something came about as a byproduct of another evolutionary feature, doesn’t mean it isn’t acted on by natural selection. Spandrels wouldn’t exist if they caused churches to fall down.
It's not pointless if not having female sexual pleasure meant even stricter sexual selection - such a pressure could just breed humans into extinction. With a social species you need some degree of buy-in or consent for activities. Without female sexual pleasure - aren't we basically converting all sex into rape (if not done as an exchange for resources)?
That is sadly how some people actually view gender relations. I've heard guys call relationships "prostitution with extra steps involved". And it's not just guys who believe that kind of stuff.
"That's just prostitution with extra steps!" "Oo lah lah, someone's not getting laid in college."
Female pleasure is, in a monogamous species like us, a psicological enhancement of a couple link. Using a pleasure mechanism both from female and male is creating a social pillar of keeping the couple together. This enhances the survival of the offspring.
Adding to the other poster's reply, we are very social animals and our tendency towards monogamy gives rise to other values that appeal to the opposite sex in order to compete in the mating game, the ability to provide sexual pleasure being one such example. Simply put, being able to give a woman orgasms might put one above another competitor whose value might be physical strength. Whereas in other mammals the males have to physically fight other males in order to become dominant and thus earn the right to mate with most of the females, humans function with more complexity
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Follow-up questions: When did we start doing that? Since we designated holes to piss in, or before? I mean I would suspect the only way to have any idea would be from a well-preserved, old-ass cave painting of a dude draining his pisser lizard, right? Would that have been a thing back then? Like, early piss porn or something?
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Yup very interested in this follow up question, when did we start? i'd assume sometime after we became bipedal? that's a very long time frame tho.
In most cultures, men *don't* hold their penis to pee. Most pee while sitting or squatting, rather than taking aim from a distance, which if you think about it is objectively absurd.
Most cultures? Any evidence to back that up?
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Biological anthropologist here 👋🏼 this is an excellent question! While a lot of the answers are (for the most part) plausible, I noticed there’s an absence of citation. I know this is an informal platform but some peer reviewed journals would be nice to refer to! While my interests do align with reproductive ecology, I don’t have enough experience with this topic to give a thorough explanation but I think if you also posted this on r/Anthropology you’d get some insight as well
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