Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Department of Logic and Theoretical Philosophy, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
J Morphol. 2023 Jan;284(1):e21544. doi: 10.1002/jmor.21544.
The definition of homology and its application to reproductive structures, external genitalia, and the physiology of sexual pleasure has a tortuous history. While nowadays there is a consensus on the developmental homology of genital and reproductive systems, there is no agreement on the physiological translation, or the evolutionary origination and roles, of these structural correspondences and their divergent histories. This paper analyzes the impact of evolutionary perspectives on the homology concept as applied to the female orgasm, and their consequences for the biological and social understanding of female sexuality and reproduction. After a survey of the history of pre-evolutionary biomedical views on sexual difference and sexual pleasure, we examine how the concept of sexual homology was shaped in the new phylogenetic framework of the late 19th century. We then analyse the debates on the anatomical locus of female pleasure at the crossroads of theories of sexual evolution and new scientific discourses in psychoanalysis and sex studies. Moving back to evolutionary biology, we explore the consequences of neglecting homology in adaptive explanations of the female orgasm. The last two sections investigate the role played by different articulations of the homology concept in evolutionary developmental explanations of the origin and evolution of the female orgasm. These include the role of sexual, developmental homology in the byproduct hypothesis, and a more recent hypothesis where a phylogenetic, physiological concept of homology is used to account for the origination of the female orgasm. We conclude with a brief discussion on the social implications for the understanding of female pleasure derived from these different homology frameworks.
同源性的定义及其在生殖结构、外生殖器和性快感生理学中的应用有着曲折的历史。虽然现在人们对生殖和生殖系统的发育同源性有共识，但对于这些结构对应物的生理转化，以及它们的进化起源和作用，并没有达成一致。本文分析了进化观点对应用于女性性高潮的同源性概念的影响，以及它们对女性性和生殖生物学和社会理解的后果。在对性别的进化前生物医学观点和性快感的历史进行调查之后，我们研究了性同源性概念是如何在 19 世纪后期新的系统发育框架中形成的。然后，我们分析了在性进化理论和精神分析学及性研究新科学话语的交汇处，关于女性快感的解剖学定位的争论。回到进化生物学，我们探讨了在女性性高潮的适应性解释中忽略同源性的后果。最后两节探讨了同源性概念的不同表达在女性性高潮起源和进化的进化发育解释中所扮演的角色。其中包括性发育同源性在副产品假说中的作用，以及一个更为近期的假说，即使用种系发生、生理学同源性概念来解释女性性高潮的起源。我们最后简要讨论了这些不同的同源性框架对理解女性快感的社会意义。
