by Robin Baker
The two who were raped both ovulated and conceived. Perhaps they were stimulated to ovulate by the rape itself, as we discussed previously (Scene 33). This was almost predictable for the mother, but was against the odds for the daughter. Given that females might ovulate in response to rape, the chances of the mother conceiving could have been as high as about one in three. The chances for the daughter conceiving, however, were probably no higher than one in fifty.
It is difficult to guess which of the soldiers sired the two children. Inevitably, one of the features of gang rape is that it generates intensive sperm warfare in the victim. All else being equal, we might expect the first male who inseminated each female to be the reproductive winner (Scene 21). He was the one whose egg-getters got a head start in reaching the oviducts, whose killers were first to take up their positions in the womb, and whose blockers had the chance to establish themselves in the cervix. However, as we discussed in Scene 21, much will have depended on how quickly the subsequent men also inseminated the female, on how efficiently each penis removed the seminal pool from the man before, and on precisely when each female ovulated. In Scene 34 the odds will have favoured the soldier in command because he was the first to inseminate both females, but any one of the doomed men could have left a descendant to perpetuate his rapist genes.
SCENE 35
Men Are All the Same
The sound of laughter erupted from the corner of the bar. The two women at the table looked around, suddenly feeling conspicuous – but they had drunk enough not really to care. They leaned towards each other again, the taller of the two making the shape of a cup with her free hand, determined to convey to her friend just how big her partner’s testes were. She’d seen quite a few men’s packages in her time, she said, and her partner’s were by far the biggest.
The two hadn’t met for years but had exchanged the occasional letter. Finally, they had decided it was time to meet up again, so the other woman had invited her friend, her partner and their two young children to stay for the weekend. Tonight, the men had wanted to watch some sport on the television, so the women had decided to leave them to baby-sit while they went out to get drunk and catch up on each other’s lives. Now that they were drunk, what they really wanted to talk about was sex. In particular, they wanted to know about each other’s sex life.
The other woman wasn’t sure that she would like big testes. Her own partner, she said, trading information, had really small ones, smaller than table-tennis balls. His penis seemed a bit small, too. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, the taller woman said her partner’s penis was definitely big. Sometimes she wished it weren’t quite so big. He tended to be really vigorous when he was thrusting and sometimes he hurt her. She didn’t know what it was inside her that he kept poking, but it was certainly uncomfortable. She also wished he didn’t want sex quite so often. Most of her friends, she said, were down to once a week, but, even after all this time, she still had a job to keep him down to two or three times a week. Even then she reckoned he masturbated if she ever left him alone in the house.
That would be no good for her, her friend said. She wouldn’t be able to cope with having sex that often. Fortunately, her partner also had a low sex drive – they were lucky if they managed it twice a month now. It had been once or twice a week when they first started living together, but it had soon declined. As for masturbation - they had never talked about it. She wasn’t even sure he’d know how to. The taller woman laughed and then expressed her amazement that they had never talked about it. One of the first things her partner would tell her when she returned after leaving him alone in the house was whether he had masturbated. Maybe he didn’t always tell her, but she thought he did usually.
They paused to sip their drinks. The other woman hesitated, summoning the courage to ask what for her was a big question. Falteringly, in a quiet, confidential voice, she asked her friend how often she came during sex. Without any surprise or self-consciousness, the taller woman replied that she came sometimes - but her partner expected her to come every time. In the early days, she had told him once or twice that she hadn’t and he had sulked for hours. Ever since, if she didn’t come, she faked it. Besides which, she said, he could keep going for hours, just waiting for her. If she didn’t fake it, he would never stop.
Feeling uncomfortable, the other woman took another sip. She found some consolation in her friend’s answer, but not much. There was a brief silence. She knew it was her turn to reciprocate but couldn’t decide whether to tell the truth or not. In the end, she admitted that she had never come during sex. In fact, she didn’t think she had ever had an orgasm. When they had sex, her partner just stuck it in and ejaculated. Admittedly, he had tried – at least in the early days. He used to fiddle around between her legs during foreplay, but it had never really done much for her. If anything, she used to get embarrassed rather than excited. In the end, she had told him not to bother and just to get on with it. Once or twice she had felt something during intercourse but it had never amounted to anything. She wasn’t sure whether it was her or him, but she had just never got anything from sex – except their baby.
In a matter-of-fact way that shocked her friend, the taller woman asked if it was any better with other men. The other woman smiled and shook her head. There hadn’t been any other men, she said. The taller woman asked if she meant never, or not since she had been living with her partner. When told never, she expressed disbelief, astounded that anybody could get to thirty and only ever have had sex with one man. She must have had at least twenty. When asked if she meant when she was younger or if she had had other men since living with her partner, she laughed at the innocence of the question and said both. She expected at least one fling a year. She’d even had sex with someone else while she was pregnant with her first child. The thought of only having sex with her partner and missing out on the excitement of someone new occasionally was unimaginable.
Unsure of how she felt about her friend in the light of these revelations, the other woman tried to think of a suitable response. In the end, she simply said she didn’t know how the other managed to get away with it. Her own partner hardly ever let her out of his sight and she was sure he would know if she even thought about being unfaithful. Her friend said she sometimes wished her partner were a bit more attentive. Not too much, but a bit. Sometimes she thought he didn’t care what she did. He was never around when she needed him – for all she knew, he could be having a different woman every week. There were always women around him. He could take his pick. It would be a hopeless task trying to turn him into an attentive partner and father. In any case, if she did, it would give her far less chance to enjoy herself.
She leaned forward and touched her friend’s hand. Apparently taking no account of the latter’s confessed fidelity, she told her what she should do if she wanted a partner who would give her orgasms. In a whisper, she confided that the best lover she had ever had had been gay. She hadn’t realised until she had seen him holding hands with another man in a bar a few weeks after they had finished. He had been wonderful, and had always seemed to know exactly what she wanted. Try and find yourself one, she urged.
Her friend was just about to recoil at a prospect so alien to her, when one of the men at the bar began to make his way unsteadily over to their table. He put down his drink and balanced himself awkwardly with arms outstretched, fists on the table. Dribbling slightly, he observed that the two women looked as though they knew how to have a good time. Why didn’t they come with him? He could give them a night to remember. Maybe they should toss a coin to see who could have him first.
The taller woman told him to drop dead. When he didn’t leave, she stood up and pushed him away. He fell backwards on to the floor, then got to his feet and swore at them before staggering back to the bar. The woman sat back down, picked up her drink and smiled at her friend. Deep down, she observed, men were all the same. Drunk or sober, young or old, they were only interested in one thing. If they had half a b
rain as well as genitals they would really be quite dangerous.
Sexually, men are much more similar to each other than are women. Virtually all men ejaculate (whereas not all women have orgasms). Virtually all men masturbate (whereas nearly a quarter of women do not). Virtually all men have nocturnal orgasms at some time in their lives (whereas 60 per cent of women do not). Nevertheless, men do still differ in the ways they pursue reproductive success. There are roughly four different strategies.
One strategy mentioned in Scene 35 is bisexuality (discussed at some length in Scene 30). The two other strategies described by the women in the scene represent the two ends of the male spectrum of sexuality. We have met these two types of men before in a different context (Scene 19). One specialises in sperm warfare, the other in avoiding sperm warfare. In between these two types lie the majority of men who intermesh an avoidance and a seeking of sperm warfare in as productive a way as possible. Just which strategy a male is programmed to adopt will depend largely on his rate of sperm production – which in turn depends on the size of his testes.
Men have a pair of testes of unequal size (on average, the right is 5 per cent larger), which hang in a scrotal sac at different heights (more often the left is lower). The testes of all mammals originate inside the body in the same position as the ovaries – and in many species that is where they stay. In other species, such as humans, they descend into the scrotal sac before birth and stay there throughout life. In yet other species, the testes descend during the breeding season, then go back inside the body for safe keeping once the breeding season is over.
Scrotal testes are more vulnerable than internal testes and can easily be damaged. The main compensation is that, because they allow the sperm to be stored at a lower temperature than if they were stored inside the body, it is easier for the sperm to keep fitter and healthier for longer. When men are naked, their sperm are stored at a temperature that is 6°C cooler than if they were inside the body, but when they are clothed, the difference is only 3°C.
On average, taller and heavier (but not obese) men have larger testes. Some men, though, have testes that are relatively large for their body size; others have testes that are relatively small. This difference is genetic and heritable. As long as there are no associated clinical problems, even the smallest of testes can produce enough sperm for fertilisation in the absence of sperm warfare. Moreover, small testes are less vulnerable and less likely to be damaged than larger ones. So why don’t all men have small testes? The answer is that when sperm warfare is likely, small testes are a major handicap. The sexual strategy that a man does best to pursue, therefore, is dictated to a large extent by the size of his testes.
Men with larger testes manufacture more sperm per day, ejaculate more often, and introduce more sperm at each intercourse. Interestingly, they don’t ejaculate more sperm during masturbation. They spend less time with their partner, and are more likely to be unfaithful and to choose a partner who will also be unfaithful. The converse is true, in all these respects, for men with smaller testes.
In short, men with larger testes are programmed to specialise in the pursuit of sperm warfare – warfare which, because of their large sperm armies, they are likely to win. Men with smaller testes, on the other hand, are programmed to specialise in mate guarding, fidelity and the avoidance of sperm warfare – warfare which, because of their small armies, they would be likely to lose. So who is the more successful reproductively, a man with small testes or a man with large ones? The answer seems to be neither. Just as for bisexuality, evolution seems to have produced a balance such that men with large testes and men with small do equally well.
To illustrate this point, imagine a population of men with small testes, injecting few sperm into their respective partners and making no attempt to inseminate other men’s partners. Into this population comes a man with large testes who not only claims a partner of his own but also tries to inseminate other men’s partners. At first, he does extremely well. Every time he inseminates another man’s partner he is likely to win the sperm war because he introduces a larger sperm army. Yet, at the same time, he is safe from the possibility of ‘cuckoos’ appearing in his own nest because other men are not inseminating his partner. As a result, at each generation men with large testes produce more children than men with small. Moreover, their male descendants inherit their large testes, their promiscuity and their ability to win sperm warfare.
But this success eventually becomes self-defeating. At each generation there are more and more men with large testes – descendants of the original invader – and in the end such men no longer have an advantage. First, they are no longer assured of winning sperm wars because the women they inseminate are being inseminated by other men with large testes. Secondly, their own partners are now vulnerable to being inseminated by other men with equally large testes. Thirdly, the greater promiscuity in the population puts everybody at greater risk to disease, particularly the most promiscuous – such as themselves. Thus, when there are too many men with large testes in the population, the less well-endowed ones who concentrate on guarding their partner against other men actually do better. Not least this is because such men are less at risk to disease and their smaller testes are less vulnerable to accident and damage.
So if sperm war specialists with large testes ever become too common in the population, they actually do worse reproductively than men with small testes. We have met this situation before (Scene 30) and the outcome should be the same. The proportion of men with large testes settles down at the level at which, on average, such men do no better and no worse than men with small ones.
In Scene 35, the man with large testes was raising two children who may or may not have been his. In addition, he may or may not have produced other children with other women. The man with small testes was raising one child, which was certainly his (according to his partner). The latter male has greater certainty, the former has greater potential. On average, however, the two types of men should produce equal numbers of children.
In between these two extremes of testis size and reproductive strategy lie the majority of men – those with testes of intermediate size. These employ a ‘mixed’ strategy by which they try to strike the best compromise between mate guarding and sperm warfare, but specialise in neither. The presence in the population of this ‘mixed’ majority might seem to complicate the picture, but in fact the conclusion remains the same – their proportion is also fixed at the level at which on average their reproductive success is no better and no worse than males with smaller or larger testes. In effect, as long as a man pursues a reproductive strategy appropriate to the size of his testes and his rate of sperm production, he should on average do just as well as other men with different-sized testes.
The sperm war specialist in Scene 35 had a large penis as well as large testes, whereas the mate-guarding specialist had a small penis as well as small testes. This should not be surprising, given that the penis does have a role in sperm warfare – the removal of any seminal pool from the vagina (Scene 21). On the whole, however, a large penis is not as consistent a feature of sperm war specialists as large testes – because, compared with testis size, penis size influences the outcome of sperm warfare far less often. After all, penis size is important only on those rare occasions when a man has sex with a woman very soon after another man - so soon that the latter’s seminal pool is still at the top of her vagina. In contrast, testis size, via sperm number, is always important in sperm warfare.
This explains why there has been much more pressure on sperm war specialists to have larger testes than to have a larger penis, but it does not explain why any man should have a small penis. There is, of course, a lower limit to penis size – that below which a man cannot introduce sperm far enough up the vagina. There is also an upper limit – that beyond which a man would be unable to thrust without damaging the woman. Within this range, though, why should any man have a penis smaller than the upper limit? The answer is that within this
range there is no real disadvantage to a smaller penis (other than being an infrequent handicap for sperm warfare) and there may even be an occasional advantage.
On the one hand, a smaller penis is no disadvantage in terms of sperm retention. First, it is not particularly less efficient at delivering a seminal pool to the top of the vagina. This is because even when a penis of below-maximum size withdraws after insemination, the vaginal walls close behind it (Scene 3), effectively pushing the seminal pool to the top of the vagina. Secondly, penis size has no influence on the probability of a man’s partner having an orgasm during intercourse.
On the other hand, a smaller-than-maximum penis may even be an advantage, particularly during routine sex. Everything depends on the costs and benefits of a man removing his own seminal pool whenever he inseminates a woman twice in rapid succession, say within thirty minutes or so (Scene 25). On these occasions, a smaller penis will be an advantage if the previous seminal pool is better left in place. If the pool is better removed, a smaller penis can still do the job – it just takes longer. In many ways, therefore, a smaller-than-maximum penis endows a man with greater flexibility than does a larger one. It is also less likely to be accidentally damaged.
