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"We sort of love gabbing about orgasms here on Smitten. We&amp;amp;#8217;ve talked about faking them, male orgasms and even documentaries about orgasms! They&amp;amp;#8217;ve become such a hot topic that it seems as though there&amp;amp;#8217;s a new study on the big O just about every week. The latest one making the rounds is all about discovering the &amp;amp;#8220;point&amp;amp;#8221; of female orgasms. I can&amp;amp;#8217;t wait to hear what you ladies have to say about this one!Pop Sci (the online home of Popular Science) recently shared a story that looks at the functionality behind female orgasms. The article points out that many scientists believe women &amp;amp;#8220;probably started having orgasms as a by-product of men having them, similar to how men have nipples because women have them.&amp;amp;#8221; And speaking of male orgasms, Pop Sci explains that they &amp;amp;#8220;exist, it&amp;amp;#8217;s widely believed, to encourage men to spread their seed. On face value, it would be easy to say that women orgasm for the same reason: to encourage them to have sex and make babies. But in practice, compared to male orgasm, female orgasm is very difficult to achieve. There&amp;#x27;s a lot of variation even within individual women, and 10 percent of women never have them at all. And, unlike male orgasm, female orgasm isn&amp;amp;#8217;t a prerequisite for pregnancy.&amp;amp;#8221; Two scientists eager to explore the &amp;amp;#8220;point&amp;amp;#8221; of female orgasms asked pairs of twins (same-sex identical siblings, same-sex not identical siblings and opposite sex siblings) to participate in their research. Participants were asked questions about their &amp;amp;#8220;orgasmability&amp;amp;#8221; (how often they had orgasms, how difficult it was to reach them and how long orgasms lasted, etc) and then researchers studied their answers. The researchers found &amp;amp;#8220;strong orgasmability correlations among same-sex identical twins&amp;amp;#8221; but for the other pairs, not so much. While interesting, some opponents of this study dismissed it as comparing &amp;amp;#8220;apples and oranges.&amp;amp;#8221; One of the scientists behind the study agreed that there&amp;amp;#8217;s still quite a bit of research needed to get to the bottom of this mystery, saying, &amp;amp;#8220;Figuring out the function of female orgasm, if any, will probably require very large genetically informative samples, fertility data, and detailed information on sexual behaviour, orgasm rate, and the conditions and partners involved.&amp;amp;#8221; So what is the point of female orgasms? The experts are still out on that one. But anecdotally, I think we can all weigh in. They feel lovely, they help you relax, they help you get to know your own body better and they&amp;amp;#8217;re a wonderful way to bond with your partner. Darlings, have you ever wondered if female orgasms have a &amp;amp;#8220;point?&amp;amp;#8221; Honestly, the thought hadn&amp;amp;#8217;t occurred to me until I stumbled on this story. What&amp;amp;#8217;s the best thing about an orgasm for you? And how important are orgasms in your sex life? More Ways to Get Glamour: Chat with celebs, VIP fashion stars, beauty pros and more on our Facebook page! Visit Facebook.com/glamour for this month&amp;amp;#8217;s schedule NEW! Now You Can Read Glamour on Flipboard! Visit ShopGlamour.com for cute stuff starting at just $10! Download Glamour Magazine for your iPad--print subscribers, it&amp;amp;#8217;s now part of your subscription plan! Enter the latest Glamour sweepstakes! Follow us on Twitter. Photo: Digital Vision"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/smitten/2011/09/orgasms-scientists-wonder-abou>