It's strange that even today the word "vagina" is used by adults as a euphemism it seems for "vulva". And that's dumb for a few reasons. For one thing it's not really even a euphemism because a vagina is an actual thing.

It's more like a little girl pointing at a penis and being told it's a prostate. A little boy points at a little girl sitting on the floor and says "What's that mummy?" He is told that it is her vagina, in spite of the fact that her vagina cannot be seen.

So parents might teach young children that "Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina" and leave it at that. The vulva is ignored, sometimes for life. In some parts of the world it is removed, excised.

Rod

Exactly right, the yummy bits. But that seems to be the problem when sex "education" is given too early or incompletely and then forgotten about. The basic functionality of the male anatomy can be taught without talking about orgasms (they talk about stiffies but not orgasms) but not so the female anatomy, because to educate too completely would involve describing the function of the clitoris.

Rod

Is a vulva intrinsically yummy? I think not. Be honest with yourself, if you were served one in a restaurant you would leave it at the side of your plate, and possibly leave any chips that had touched it too. They come in different shapes and sizes but most have a strong resemblance to a plucked and dressed chicken with some rather coarse curly hair poking out. It is only the associations that make it seem attractive. In and of itself the vulva, and, let's not be sexist, the male genitalia too, are ugly. Prettier things are found on fishmonger's slabs.

It is only the associations with pleasure and reproduction that make the vulva seem in any way attractive. But that is a big only. A very big only.

Martin

Reminds me of something I heard when I was a caddie. A player said "That was a cunt shot; felt good, looks terrible".

Rod

I disagree. We males find the vulva attractive because it is the vulva. Aesthetics don't get a look in. As for sexual selection working on the vulva that is absurd, you would have to postulate men getting into a position to have sex and then refusing to do so because of the condition of the vulva. All I can say is such an event has never been recorded on my planet. The closest I have known is a "Aye, well pet, I don't actually fancy going down on you tonight, I had a bad kebab last night."

The evolutionary pressure is entirely the other way. Aesthetics are shaped by the functions of the vulva. If it works, it will do, and, well, it will probably do anyway. We learn to love what there is on offer, because it would be mighty inconvenient for us and our genes if we didn't.

At last a subject to get stuck into. Something meaty.

As I see it this subject is clouded by a misapprehension about what evolution is. This is a very common error, in fact I would say that more people misunderstand evolution than understand it, including a fair proportion of the people who teach it.

Evolution is not a branch of classical economics. It is not a force for progress. It does not work to secure desirable ends through the blind polling of the attitudes of a market. The God of evolution is not Adam Smith's unseen hand, if there is an image to personify this force, which I think should never be imagined in this anthropomorphic way at all, then the god would be Odin, the uncaring god. Evolution is the inevitable and unavoidable consequence of replication in a finite environment. It works by failure, by death and by differential success rates in breeding and raising offspring. Ignore preferences and prejudices that have no effect on these sums, evolution does.

I am not arguing that men have no preferences in vulvas. That is not necessary for my argument. What I am saying is that evolution is blind to the aesthetics of vulvas for the following reasons:-

1] While men might have a preference for one type over another they do not act on that preference. I have asked a lot of men about the subject and have yet to come across even anecdotal evidence of a man refusing to have sex with a woman because of the appearance of her vulva, except when it is obviously diseased. (Even then it would usually have to have luminous green pus dripping from it or be heaving with lice to make a man stop in his tracks.) Usually by the time a man gets to see the vulva he has decided to have sex. In earlier centuries across many cultures by the time a man saw a vulva he was already married to its owner. You could say that beer became widespread because of mans need to have sex with women despite their appearance.

2] Even if men did act on those preferences and shunned women with ugly vulvas they would still breed. There is very strong selection pressure against facial ugliness but only the real brown-baggers end up with no mate. Again the role of beer is implicated. Along with shame, simple economics (ugly wife chops logs, cooks mammoth and collects water as well as pretty one) religion and low levels of interior lighting.

3] Assuming assortative mating would be invoked, that women with ugly vulvas would be less desirable mates this makes them now, paradoxically, more likely to breed. The poor get stuck with the ugly women. The poor breed faster, earlier, more often, now that poverty merely spells misery not destitution and death, the trend will be for the poor parts of our cities to fill up with uglier and more stupid people. As long as they have social security numbers and a circulatory system capable of extracting nutrients, even if only by intravenous means, they will survive, and naturally "caring" social workers and doctors will help them breed whenever possible.

4] The genes for ugly vulvas are invisible to evolution for 50% of the time. Males do not have ugly vulvas but they can spread the genes for them, symptomless carriers. We are very familiar with the persistence of diseases that are carried without being expressed, this is because evolution can only have an effect on the success of a gene when it is expressed as a phenotype. Half the time ugly vulva genes are carried by men.

5] We have no obvious template for an attractive vulva. What should it look like? The obvious and correct answer is that an attractive vulva looks like the vulva of a young fertile member of our tribe, or at least our species, in other words we like what we get. Men are not trying to make vulvas look like some other model. There is no obvious trend for sexual selection to follow. The peacock's tail is obviously better when it is bigger, brighter, wider and with more obvious eyespots. But what should a woman's vulva look like, only a prettier one, but what does that mean?

6] Sexual selection only works strongly when the sex that selects is choosy and the sex that is selected can be differentially successful in breeding. It works best in polygamous species, especially when the females select a trait that the males carry. It works much less significantly for female characteristics. If a woman has the sexiest vulva ever seen on the planet how can that be reflected in huge advantage in her offspring? The best that can happen is that he becomes the monogamous wife of the chief, and has 6 to 12 children, only half of which will be girls, possibly only a quarter of them girls with the genes for very attractive vulvas.

You see how a runaway sexual selection in favour of attractive vulvas simply cannot happen? At the very best it could have been very slight, marginal, and operating only across the longest periods of time. And almost certainly counteracted by the much stronger evolutionary pressure on men to shag while they have an opportunity to do so, as long as they felt safe to shag another day. Simply put the evolutionary pressures on the aesthetics of vulvas would be buried beneath the much stronger pressure on men to have sex with any available woman on any conceivable occasion. Pun intended.

More weighty matters.

The science of shirt potatoes.

Why are women's breasts obvious all the time? This is not the normal mammalian pattern. If you see a mammal with obvious mammary glands you can deduce one of three things:-

1] The mammal in question is pregnant or lactating

2] The mammal is old and has lactated before, possibly several times

or

3] The mammal has been subject to selection by man

The third one explains women's breasts as well as the bloated udders of dairy animals. Breasts are a sexually selected sign of health, fertility and sexual maturity. As breasts do not fossilize well it is impossible to say for certain when they evolved, no theory can be proved, here for what it is worth is my theory, a re-telling of a well known tale, with a twist or two of my own.

Here is my Just So Story.

Breasts can serve as a buttock mimic. The interesting bits of the female anatomy are carried by most mammals (quadrupeds) in a very obvious way, they stick out at the back, they are in your face quite literally. I am sure you can conjure up some images from TV and real life involving dogs, horses or baboons. The male can just stick his snout in and see, smell or even taste whatever he wants.

Standing upright put a stop to all that. From being just about as convenient as possible that 90 degree swivel of the hips has put the vulva out of sight, although never out of mind. The focus of the male's attention was still in the same place but it was no longer available and accessible. The attention moved a little. The first place the sexual focus would shift to would be to the closest obviously female attribute to the vulva, there was only one candidate, the hips and buttocks. Female hips became wider to cope with the birth of big-headed babies, hips became wide, buttocks filled up with fatty deposits to help with the stress of lactating, all these inevitable consequences spelled one thing, the creation of the sexy arse.

Buttocks were hemispheres of smooth flesh that swayed as the women walked. Sex on legs. Smooth hemispheres of fatty tissue spelled sexy women. The next bit needs a little bit of faith to get over. At some time the association of smooth even hemispheres with sexual maturity in human females spilled over into a taste for larger breasts. It is relatively easy to imagine that the hormonal surges that stimulate the mammary glands at puberty in all female mammals could also trigger a growth in fatty breast tissue, initially as a random mutation. If this happened in a small breeding group it could easily become widespread. Early man lived in very small groups for most of the time, breeding situations that make small communities in the Appalachians look genetically diverse. So we can imagine a situation in which by genetic accident some women develop fatty deposits on their breasts at puberty, then all we have to do is to imagine the reaction of the men.

At first the men would not particularly like the mutation. All mutations are suspect. But if you have grown up with sisters and a mother with obvious breasts then breasts become normal. Distaste would go away. Later we can imagine a situation in which breasts have become a minority trait within a large group and a majority within a sub-group. The trait could grow in two ways, the men could see it as attractive, as a mimic of the buttocks, a sign of sexuality. This is easy to understand, even now with our brains significantly more advanced many men see larger breasts as a badge denoting a bigger sexual appetite or looser standards. It is quite easy to connect breasts with sexual maturity, puberty, the optimum age to take a wife and so on. After all if men can get sexually excited at the idea of gym-slips, high-heeled shoes, and even blonde hair, then it is not difficult to imagine them making a link between a then unusual side-effect of puberty and the whole concept of sex.

The second way the breast thing could spread is by tribal means. If the Ugg tribe women have breasts and the other tribe do not then Ugg men will soon get to think that breasts are good, bigger breasts are better. Just think about highly the men of the Deep South prized their lily white skinned blonde-haired blue eyed wives. (Even while they were keeping themselves occupied in the slave quarters too) White women with tanned skin and dark hair and eyes were less attractive, when war put men at a premium it would be the brunettes that became sour old maids.

And so at some stage, I would guess in the stage of our evolution we call Homo erectus, breasts became universal for sexually mature females. All racial groups on the planet have enlarged breasts, although some more so than others. Diet and dress has a part. Eskimos get little chance to look at breasts and the low fat and low calorie diet typical of South East Asia is not conducive to the same kind of breasts that can be achieved by the milk maids of Northern Europe.

And that, best beloved, is how the woman got her hooters.