More about female sexual organs

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.

Sexual Organs

             Sex, we have heard this word several times. We have read it when we fill up forms or sign up for new account on some email based websites, but that refers to gender. We all know these things. But what exactly is sex?

              Well, my friends the answer is not simple. I’ve asked many people about this, but the answers were not satisfactory. They normally answered a man and a woman having sex is sex. But the definition sex had changed a long ago. For example, there once was a time when homosexuality was not tolerable even in western countries, nowadays it is accepted in many countries. The time has changed a lot. New kinds of STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) came. New techniques of birth control were introduced. Many kinds of sexual toys were invented. Prostitution is legalized in many parts of the world. We will discuss about these subjects later on other articles. In this article, we will discuss about sexual organs.

              Sexual Organs – Female

We start this article by describing clitoris. Many experts consider the clitoris to be penis that just didn’t grow. They describe the entire female genitalia as male organs that never matured. Understandably, all the scholars who feel this way are men. Women experts look at it another way. According to them, the penis is nothing more than an overgrown clitoris. They consider the male organ a primitive version of the more ‘refined’ female sexual apparatus.

 Everybody is about half right. At an early stage in development, the human embryo has both male and female sexual organs. They exist in the form of primitive tissue that later differentiates into a specialized organ. The embryo has a bisexual phallus; in those destined to be male it differentiates into a penis. Future girls will end up with a clitoris. According to the chromosomal decision made at the microsecond of conception, the tiny being may evolve one day into either a topless dancer or a well-muscled bouncer. For the moment, however, the future chorus girl is as well equipped as the men who will, twenty years from now, whistle and stamp their feet in appreciation of her feminine charms. Likewise, the future lifeguard has, potentially, all the pelvic endowments of the bikini-clad lovelies who will one day swarm around him.

 Fortunately for those concerned, long before birth, the sexual structures of the suppressed sex atrophy and all but disappear. At the time of delivery the normal infant has clear-cut and distinctive sexual features. The obstetrician can tell the parents whether it’s a boy or a girl. But if he were completely honest, he would say: Congratulations, you are the proud parents of a six pound (98 per cent) girl!’ Because at least two per cent of the sexual organs of the male and female really belong to the other sex. Boys are two per cent girls and girls are two per cent boys. This is proportion in normal people – in abnormal cases the percentage can be a lot higher. For example, the testicles are nothing more than female ovaries which have found a new home in the scrotum. (Some experts prefer to consider the ovaries merely testicles which did not descend. The point of view usually depends on whether the expert has testicles or ovaries.)

              If the embryo is going to be a boy, the future testicles will drop through the pelvic cavity into the labia majora and expand them into a scrotum. The undifferentiated phallus increases dramatically in size and in the process is pierced by the urethra to become the penis. If the embryo is to follow the female path, there are fewer changes required. The ovaries stay where they are. The labia majora also remain essentially unchanged. Only a few minor alterations are required to produce uncomplicated structures like the vagina and labia minora. This doesn’t mean that if the original sexual organs don’t develop, the embryo will be female. At the earliest stages, the embryo has little more than gonads – future ovaries or testicles; genital swellings – future labia majora or scrotum; and phallus – future penis or clitoris. If the child is going to be sexually distinctive as male or female, development must occur in one direction or the other. In the male this development is fairly complicated. The female has a much shorter distance to travel. This has led some researchers, all of them women, to suggest that every embryo is originally female. About half of them (the unlucky ones according to these ladies) develop into males.

              This is all for this article. You will read rest of this topic in the next article.