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Women Unconsciously Helped Shape It
Scientists believe that female mate choice played an important role in this development. During sex, women preferred men with a penis that was longer and thicker.
Studies from evolutionary biology, for example from the University of Ottawa and the Australian National University, confirm this: women perceive larger and more strongly shaped penises as more attractive. This natural selection has therefore helped shape what the male body looks like today.
On the surface, the sexual act is also a waste of energy, as it requires physical effort and lasts several minutes. This, too, is a distinctive feature already found among mammals.
Why? This question can be answered through evolutionary biology, and it also traces back to insights from the well-known scientist Charles Darwin.
Evolution and Genetic Ancestry
Humans, Homo sapiens, are genetically descended roughly half from chimpanzees and half from bonobos. Both ape species began having frequent sex with one another, reproducing more often as a result. Monogamy is unknown among primates. This means that, over thousands of years, nature had to find a way to ensure that a particular powerful male ape had a higher chance of reproducing and protecting the species than other males. In terms of reproduction, this meant nature had to create a reproductive organ capable of scooping out any semen already present in the female and depositing its own very deep, so that it, in turn, could not be scooped out.
The Structure of the Penis
This is why the human penis is shaped like a shovel, with a distinctly protruding ridge on the glans. The minutes-long movement is the shovelling effect. And the length and size ensure that the semen can be deposited deep enough.
Evolutionary changes, here as elsewhere, occur out of physical necessity.
The Unconscious Preference Shown by Women
Because the female is also aware of this, she is drawn especially to the male most likely to have the greatest reproductive success, since he will subsequently be needed to protect the offspring and herself.
All of this happens unconsciously, in the evolutionarily older parts of our brains, where it is stored as a basic program.
Conclusion
The shape of the human penis is neither a coincidence nor purely the result of biological necessity. It has also developed through the unconscious choices women made over many generations. Women preferred certain shapes that enhanced reproductive success and, with it, the sexual experience – and evolution carried that preference forward over thousands of years. Nature, in this respect, is remarkably clever – and sometimes surprising, too.
