Is it true that every embryo is originally female and about half of them develop into males? Probably not. There is however one element of female superiority that is undeniable. In relatively primitive animals such as chickens, urination, defecation, and reproduction are all conducted at one common orifice known as the cloaca. (Literal-minded scholars coined the term – in Latin cloaca means sewer.) On moving up the evolutionary scale, the functions of the various openings become increasingly specialized. At what we like to consider the top of the tree, human beings, the male has progressed to the point of developing a separate orifice for defecation. He is still committed however to time-sharing for urination and reproduction; the urethra serves both purposes. The female meanwhile has reached the top. She is a deluxe model, anatomically speaking, with complete segregation of structure and function of structure and function; three jobs, three orifices. Male superiority? Well, men like to think so anyway.
All the female sexual organs have a counterpart in the male. Since the genitalia originally were identical, there must be at least a remnant of each female organ in the male and of each male organ in the female. Every man carries with him a little souvenir of the time when his masculinity was not obvious. In the anatomy books it is called vagina masculine, or male vagina. Once upon a time it was destined to become a real vagina, but that never worked out. It is simply a tiny tag of tissue tacked on to the edge of the bladder. Men even have an equivalent of the hymen. Virgin or not, this tiny memento remains permanently intact in every adult male. It is called the ‘seminal colliculus’ – colliculus is Latin for little hill. Not nearly as informative as the female hymen, it is simply a little hill of tissue next to the prostate gland, a leftover of the sex that might have been. There is a prostate gland in women, or at least the equivalent. In women the prostate gland turns to be Skenes glands, two tiny openings on either side of the urethra. Aside from becoming badly infected in ladies with gonorrhea, they have long ago lost any function. Bartholins glands, which get the credit (without doing the work) for supplying the vaginal lubrication during intercourse, have developed into structures known as the bulbo-urethra glands in male.
The bulbo-urethrals don’t do much but when they do it, it counts. They rarely supply more than one tiny drop of secretion during intercourse, but it is a mighty important drop. The initial secretion originating at the bulbo-urethral glands appears shortly after erection. No more than an expectant drop at the end of the penis, it can count as many as 50,000 sperms. If they are wiped against the vulva by an aggressive penis, only one of the kicking, squirming swimmers needs to snake its way up the vagina into the cervix. Because of the long distance involved – from the labia to the cervix, the chances are against being impregnated this way. On the other hand, girls are more likely to play this game instead of fully-fledged intercourse, because of the false sense of security it gives them. Since the odds are directly proportional to the number of exposures, it gets riskier each time. A bigger gamble is the common practice of inserting the penis, starting pelvic thrusts, and disengaging before ejaculation. A bad way to have sex and a good way to get pregnant.
Breasts: - This is another example of rudimentary organs present in both sexes. In this case they remain undeveloped until needed. In the male this means they never develop (under normal conditions); in the female they are quiescent until puberty. The only exception is the first few days of life. Then both male and female breasts produce a clear secretion called colostrum. This is a product of the milk-producing glands brought on by the large amount of sex hormones present in the infants’ body at birth. In a few days the hormones subside and the ‘milk’ disappears. The breasts themselves are actually sweat glands which have increased in size and become specialized in function. Milk is a specialized form of sweat, enriched with proteins from the mother’s blood. Fortunately this unromantic fact is buried deep in the textbooks of Embryology. Imagine the effect on the millions of red-blooded men tantalized by gorgeous globular breasts if they learned they were romantically involved with gigantic sweat glands. Why do women have only two breasts? This is the type of question that no mere human being can answer with authority. It obviously was decided that way by some higher power. However, we can guess at some possible reasons: Humans usually have only one offspring at a time; two breasts, still leave one in reserve. Only human beings, primates, and elephants have a single set of breasts at the nipple line. Other species are more amply endowed, with six or more pairs of mammary glands.
About one out of every 200 women has extra nipples. They usually extend downward over the abdomen from the regular nipples to the pubic area. In rare cases a woman may have extra set of breasts located just below the original pair. In a culture with such admiration for breasts, it is a wonder that these ladies are not in greater demand.
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