Naturally Selective: Evolution, Orgasm, and Female Choice

Researchers of human behaviour have identified an "orgasm gap": Men usually orgasm during intercourse, whereas women often do not. This book addresses this mystery. The two leading explanations are either that women are “psychologically broken” - Freud’s theory – or badly designed – the “by-product theory.” However, there is a much more compelling third explanation. Evolutionary biology, anatomy, physiology, and direct sex research suggest women have evolved under their own selection pressures and orgasm is a fitness-increasing consequence of such selective factors. This is revealed in their patterns of orgasmic response, which are neither random nor inexplicable.

Key Features

• Synthesizes decades of peer-reviewed sex research in anatomy, biology, physiology, and behavior
• Engagingly written based on feedback from students, peers, and interested lay persons
• Makes sense of the “orgasm gap” between men and women
• Provides a wider context of human sexual dimorphism and mutual sexual selection
• Balances sex research and real-world research and practical applications.

Robert King is a psychology lecturer at University College Cork, in the school of Applied Psychology. He lectures on social and biological psychology―especially in the field of human sexual behaviour―as well as on the history and philosophy of science, research methods, statistics, and behavioural genetics. He is the co-director of the Masters in Mental Health which has close ties to local health care providers, and he participates in the clinical courses. King writes an (almost) monthly column for Psychology Today which typically gets over 30k reads when he blogs about sexual behavior ( http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hive-mind ). He also also writes for Quillette online journal about the same topics. Quillette articles typically get 2m+ hits and has a subscribed base of 70k (https://quillette.com/author/robert-king/ ) King published in the peer reviewed literature on human sexual behavior, especially female orgasm, in several journals, including the highest impact factor journal in the field of human sexual behaviour―namely Archives of Sexual Behavior.