Just a thought that crossed my brain today.

From the point of view of the creation vs. evolution debate, what is the evolutionary purpose/function of the 'hymen'?

There maybe a purpose/function of it, but i dont recall ever having heard or read of a purpose.

Too entertained by the thought of the responses in the forum and too lazy to google it.

claiming any possible evolutionary purpose would just be speculation.

just as it is very clear that our opposable thumbs have a significant advantageous function, while our pinky toe has little to no function, so is it possible that the hymen has very limited purpose... if any.

this in no way contradicts or lessens evolutionary theory. it's a valid question, a puzzle, not a solid refutation by any stretch of the imagination.

i never thought of it before, but there are several possible functions i could guess at off the top of my head.

before i do so, i have to wonder what function creationism would attribute to it... ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymen



Seems like it is just a left over of vaginal(hehe) development and growth.

Xtreem,

good point . i hadn't ever thought about that one http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Originally posted by jackketch:

Xtreem,

good point . i hadn't ever thought about that one http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)



actually, it wasnt meant so much as a point, it was meant as just a question for this forum... unfortunately, i was hoping that it (the question) would hang on a little while longer, but Eil pointed out the best counter-question too soon (before i do so, i have to wonder what function creationism would attribute to it... ?)

I would like to hear a few of Eil's possibilities of the function though... I've thought of one, but it would be highly doubtful.

quote:Originally posted by napoleon_complex:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymen



Seems like it is just a left over of vaginal(hehe) development and growth.

Thanks, but the site does not talk about any reasons that a hymen would have developed to begin with.

Also, it mentions that it is present in human females. Do other placental mammals have hymens (or something similar)?

the site he supplied mentions that the hymen appears to be a vestigial membrane that forms during gestation. this implies that it may be nothing more than a leftover of fetal development. kind of like nostril plugs, except lasting until much later in life.

as for other animals with hymens, i did a quick search on google...

"Fact: Besides humans, hymens are found in lemurs (fellow primates, you'll note), guinea pigs, mole rats, hyenas, horses, llamas, and fin whales."

http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/ClaimsandFacts.htm

and a few other hypothesis i've made up off the top of my mind (i have no evidence as of yet in support or refutation):

1. the hymen may maintain a more neutral chemical balance for the inner vagina and uterus as they continues to develop early in life, preventing infection. this appears to me as very plausible/sensible. if an infection or injury occurs to the vulva or outer vagina, but does not spread to the inner vagina, it is much less likely to damage the reproductive system. that is not to say that the hymen is an indispensible and failsafe piece of anatomy, but even on the rare chance that it succesfully protects the reproductive tract, it has served its function.

2. much less likely, but nevertheless a possibility, is some sort of psychological function that the hymen may provide.

our hands evolved to pick up objects, but if that was their sole function, they would just be grasping instruments. the dexterity in our fingers and their ability for subtle manipulation presupposes the existence of a nimble and willful mind.

the diversity of facial expressions created by the extraordinary complexity of muscles beneath our skin suggests another adaptation that serves a psychological function. there appears no other obvious mechanical purpose for a frown, other than to convey emotion, and make for a more responsive social animal.

perhaps the hymen is a means of discouraging pregnancy until sexual maturity is in full swing. the youngest human pregnancy on record occurred at 4 years of age. at such young ages, when the female body is not yet fully developed, the probability of complications is enormous. the hip bones can hardly pass the newborn. there is a strong possibility that mother and/or child may die.

since the breaking of the hymen can be very painful, it may serve a one-time function of psychologically delaying sexual intercourse until hormones overwhelm the fear of vaginal pain. this may be an evolved internal 'hot stove,' which teaches a child to stay away from the kitchen until he can comprehend how to handle fire with care.

...now, what are the functions god intended?

It's for tribesmen to know when the white devil has deflowered their women.

^ah, i forgot the famous 'ace ventura' hypothesis... bumble bee tuna, hex.

"Guano...yummay."

Oh fuck...I'm accidentally hijacking a thread with Ace Ventura bullshit.

White Devil.

Maybe hymen was evolved to stop infections at young age?

"guano bowls: collect the whole set!"

one more hijack and then i'll hand the thread back, is that old dude in the godfather 2 named 'hymen roth?' i could never figure out if they were saying jaime or hymen.

Well, what about the appendix ?

Why would you start with a part of the female reproductive system, Xtreem ?

*LOL*

Eil - I don't personally know, but I would suggest that you turn on your Close Captioning, and watch it again. The answer lies within the words.

*grin*

Hmm even the Straight Dope can't explain this one for sure, but gives some possible reasons:

"[A] feature ... that appears to be unique to our species is the retention of the hymen or maidenhead in the female. In lower mammals it occurs [only during development of the embryo]. Its persistence [in humans] means that the first copulation in the life of the female will meet with some difficulty.... By making the first copulation attempt difficult and even painful, the hymen ensures that it will not be indulged in lightly. [Young males are inclined to have sex without making any long-term commitment.] But if young females were to go so far without pair-formation, they might very well find themselves pregnant and heading straight toward a parental situation with no partner to accompany them. By putting a partial brake on this trend in the female, the hymen demands that she shall have already developed a deep emotional involvement before taking the final step, an involvement strong enough to take the initial physical discomfort in its stride."

Such adaptations [i.e., retention of the hymen] are explicable only if the male of the species finds it to his advantage to seek a virgin," Bettyann Kevles observes in Female of the Species (1986). "But there is no evidence that mammal males seek inexperienced females, and no evidence that females with this peculiar anatomical feature remain monogamous.... In whales, one can explain the resealing of the vagina as a means of keeping water out of the reproductive organs."

A whale vagina... now there's a mental image to blot out the loose pussy video I just saw on I Found It On The Web

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_226.html

quote:Originally posted by Digital_Savior:

Well, what about the appendix ?

Why would you start with a part of the female reproductive system, Xtreem ?

*LOL*

As a truck driver there are times that the brain just goes off on tangents (you, of all people can relate **wink** lol).

It was just a thought that crossed my mind, and i felt it was better to toss it into the mix here, than to research it myself.

Aside from the "thread-jacking" (which, by the way, i got a few chuckles out of), there were a few comments that i wanted to address, but for some reason, TOTSE wasnt working very well for me yesterday... i'll make an attempt reight after this post.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Eil:

the site he supplied mentions that the hymen appears to be a vestigial membrane that forms during gestation.

I didnt notice, unless you are paraphrasing. But i still feel as though the site was answering the 'what' and not the 'why'. This doesnt matter, as 'vestigial' does sort of answer this.. if only with a "we dont know", which sorta proves my point anyway.

as for other animals with hymens, i did a quick search on google...

"Fact: Besides humans, hymens are found in lemurs (fellow primates, you'll note), guinea pigs, mole rats, hyenas, horses, llamas, and fin whales."

The site that you mention was a refutation of aquatic ape theory (i think it was elaine morgan whose theory it was, i also think that it was her nephew that was actually being refuted in the website you posted... there is a reason im mentioning this..), and the 'fact' that you quoted, mentions only lemurs as "fellow primates" that also have hymens. But if you read alittle further, you will note that e. morgan says, "But it is not common among primates. It is present in the lemurs, but not in monkeys and apes." Morgan (1997 http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif)152-153).

Moore's counter-point to one (again unreferenced) AAH explanation for the phenomenon is a valid one, however."

So i guess i am curious as to why lemurs and humans have (a) hymen, whereas monkeys and apes do not, if we are more closely related to monkeys and apes than to lemurs (forgive the ignorance, this is as i understand it)



and a few other hypothesis i've made up off the top of my mind (i have no evidence as of yet in support or refutation):

that's ok, this thread was not really meant as an arguement, just a thought to be tossed around, so if you have nothing to back up your hypotheses, it's alright. I'm not going to hold you to them.. i was just wondering.

1. the hymen may maintain a more neutral chemical balance for the inner vagina and uterus as they continues to develop early in life, preventing infection. this appears to me as very plausible/sensible.

I like this on the best. It was on the order of what i was thinking, but i was looking at it from barrier of/from outside influence than from a way to keep the inside 'chemically balanced'.

2. much less likely, but nevertheless a possibility, is some sort of psychological function that the hymen may provide.

not bad either, as minor pain can be an effective deterrant from a more painful infection caused by dirty fingers and such. But, from looking at it w/ POV of I.D., it would be a weak answer... it would 'beg too many questions'

perhaps the hymen is a means of discouraging pregnancy until sexual maturity is in full swing.

Also, not too bad, but also weak from ID POV.

evolved internal 'hot stove,'

this one is probably the weakest, but it is really an offshoot of your #2 and #3

...now, what are the functions god intended?

I dont know. I could make some guesses, but i think they would be even more weak than yours. I had hoped that the topic would have been 'kicked around" alittle longer before this question came up.

Generally, evolutionary functions and I.D. functions seem to be pretty side by each, the differance being evolutionary functions are reactionary, whereas ID is, well, intelligent design. So i guess i would have to say that it could be a combo of the ones you had already pointed to... which is pretty lame, since you 'got the drop on me'.

One of the alrgest misconceptions about eovlutionary theory is the "use it or lose it theory" presented by Lamarck in the early 1800's. That was infact proven wrong. If an item does not prohibit the abilities of a species, it will be passed on. Such is the case with the appendix. It may have no function, but we obviously get on well enough with it in or out.

^the appendix is a bad example, since it can burst and kill a person. still, it is a vestigial organ, highly useful in the digestive system of carnivorous animals. since it usually doesn't burst, it has proven to be genetically stubborn. not to mention the high probability that prehistoric witchdoctors may have become aware of the symptoms early in our development, and then learned how to surgically remove it. there is much evidence of strange rudimentary surgeries such as amputations, cranial drilling, stitching, bone setting, etc.

a better example than the appendix would be the pinky toe, body hair, toe nails, etc...

and then there are strange vestigial anamolies that pop up such as superflous nipples, extra body hair, tail vertebrae, overly prominent brows or jawbones, etc.

quote:Originally posted by Digital_Savior:

Eil - I don't personally know, but I would suggest that you turn on your Close Captioning, and watch it again. The answer lies within the words.

*grin*

Hyman Roth... still funny.

quote:Originally posted by xtreem5150ahm:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Eil:

[b] So i guess i would have to say that it could be a combo of the ones you had already pointed to... which is pretty lame, since you 'got the drop on me'.

sorry, xtreem. i feel like a jerk.

but, you know, none of what i postulated excludes the possibility of i.d.

good question about the chimp and the lemur... if the information is accurate, you got me.

alright, gotta get my mind off hymens... i'm starting to feel real dirty.

who brought this up anyways? http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif)



[This message has been edited by Eil (edited 04-18-2005).]

*LOL @ Eil*

The dirty-minded Christian did.

http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

BTW, Xtreem, Hymen is the god of marriage and commitment in Greece.

*grin*

Why do men have nipples? To prove they're mammals, obviously. The distinguishing features of mammals, from whales to mice, are two: having hair and suckling their offspring. This gives us the notorious sentence that demonstrates why our pronouns need overhauling: "Man is an animal who suckles his young."

Clearly, if men didn't have nipples, to demonstrate their theoretical membership in the La Leche League, we could only identify them as mammals by their hairiness. And where would that leave bald guys? What are they, reptiles?

There are some male mammals without nipples, a fact I was alerted to by Aristotle, who wrote "Such, for instance, is the case with horses, some stallions being destitute of these parts."

Since Aristotle's medical facts were sometimes a bit wobbly -- he said cabbage cures hangovers -- I called an equine veterinarian. "I have never seen a stallion with nipples," she declared flatly. "And I have looked around down there." As far as I know, she's never seen a bald stallion, either, so that's how they avoid being called reptiles.

The veterinarian pointed out that a mare's two nipples are located toward the tail end of the body, as opposed to the chic head-end location in humans. This, she daintily hinted, might be why stallions don't exhibit nipples. "There's no room."

These shocking facts sent me on a quest for other data on animal nipples or, as medical types have long preferred to say, mammae. Male nipples? Mammae masculinae. (If you need to be even more obscure you can also call a nipple a mamilla or a thelium.)

My mother, when I told her of my research, may have been hinting that there were more hard-hitting stories I could be working on by bringing up the folk analogy "as useless as tits on a boar hog." My research appears to indicate that boar hogs do in fact have tits. Which they are not known to use.

Not only do male platypuses not have nipples, neither do females. The milk simply flows out through pores and is licked up by baby platypuses. And while platypuses are not actually categorized as reptiles, you'll notice that people are always talking about how "primitive" they are and making fun of their noses.

I would have assumed that nipples were only available in even numbers had I not learned that female possums, for example, have between seven and 25 nipples. The delightful Virginia opossum, which inhabits the middles of American roads and highways, usually has 13, efficiently arranged in an open circle with one in the center. This information should not tempt you to snicker and point the next time you see a possum: They also have 50 teeth.

Most mammals, however, stick to even numbers of nipples, and often the males get to have them too. In addition to boar hogs, dogs, cats, all primates and many other animals feature the mamma masculina.

It seems that human embryos develop mammary tissue before they bother to check on whether they're going to be male or female and start modifying the basic plan with surges of this or that hormone. After only a few weeks, milk ridges form -- two stripes of tissue that start in the armpits, curve out over the chest, go straight down the stomach and then veer in toward the groin, ending somewhere high on each thigh. Later the milk ridges regress to some extent, usually leaving us with just two nipples.

Quite a few people end up with an extra, or supernumerary nipple somewhere along the trail of the milk ridge, however. (One man had five.) Sometimes they can't be mistaken for anything but a nipple, and other times they look like a mole. In fact, many people with supernumerary nipples don't know they have them until some officious and informative person starts examining their moles. Extras often run in families -- Darwin cites two brothers who each had a supernumerary nipple. Anyone who thinks that's weird should immediately leave the room and go check his or her torso for moles. How do you know you're not head-to-foot extra nipples and we've all just been too polite to mention it?

What of male nipples as erogenous zones? You know they are, or why would they be banished from the chest of Ken? (To avoid inflaming Barbie.) I have looked into the matter of G.I. Joe: I never owned a G.I. Joe, though I recall liking his accessories, particularly the canteen. (Don't take that the wrong way. Sometimes a canteen is just a canteen.)

I asked a friend, who indicated with some annoyance that her childhood G.I. Joes were just as smooth-chested as Ken. But it seems that over the years G.I. Joe bulked up, and from being an average Joe with an average physique became an eerily burly muscle man who apparently never leaves the gym except to go to the rifle range. Somewhere along the line some G.I. Joes acquired nipples to go with their superior muscle definition and popping veins. The effect is not particularly erotic: I suspect they're just there to give the viewer a reassuring landmark among all the unfamiliar ripples of the bodybuilder's torso caused by out-of-control delts, pecs, abs, intercostals and other oddities.

(In addition to the mute testimony of dolls, many actual men state emphatically that male nipples are erogenous zones.)

Of course, the principal reason for the nipple's enduring popularity is its function as a food delivery device. Ask any baby. Ask any father who has held his child in his arms and suddenly had said infant jerk its head to the side and latch optimistically onto a nipple. After a moment, the baby gives the father the reproachful look of an innocent child betrayed: You're no fun!

Darwin, who thought about everything, naturally wondered about nipples. He collected case reports of men and women with extra nipples (which he called mammae erraticae), including the case of a woman who allegedly nourished a child via an extra nipple on her thigh. (Why? Why not use the ones on her chest? Pure showboating, that's my guess.) This led him to suspect that we are descended from creatures with more than just the two mammae.

He also pondered male nipples. In "The Descent of Man," Darwin suggests the possibility that "long after the progenitors of the whole mammalian class had ceased to be androgynous, both sexes yielded milk, and thus nourished their young; and in the case of marsupials, that both sexes carried their young in marsupial sacks."

Darwin defended mammae masculinae: "The mammary glands and nipples, as they exist in male mammals, can indeed hardly be called rudimentary; they are merely not full developed, and not functionally active." He suggested that ancestral males gave up the practice of nursing, after a prolonged period, perhaps because litters were smaller. When "the males ceased to give this aid, disuse to the organs during maturity would lead to their becoming inactive; and ... this state of inactivity would probably be transmitted to the males at the corresponding age of maturity. But at an earlier age these organs would be left unaffected, so that they would be almost equally well developed in the young of both sexes."

Surely this is why everybody loves Darwin. Who else was thinking up ancestral father animals suckling pouches full of thirsty babies?

I asked mammalogist Douglas Long, collections manager for ornithology and mammalogy at the California Academy of Sciences, whether there's any new thinking on this particular suggestion of Darwin's. "Unfortunately, the fossil record doesn't give much of a clue at all," Long said. "It's very intriguing."

While there's no evidence to refute or support Darwin's hypothesis, Long points out that of the thousands of species of living mammals, "Not a single one has a male that is able to lactate in any way." Why all the male nipples, then? Long cites the embryologic process that creates mammary tissue and also notes that, evolutionarily speaking, "It's a lot more difficult to lose an organ than develop an organ ... It could be that males still have nipples because there's nothing deleterious about nipples. There's no real need to get rid of them. Why do we still have toenails, for example? Other animals use them for digging, scratching or fighting, but we don't. They're useless but at the same time they don't distract from the business of living."

Pigeons and a couple of species of fish do something similar to suckling their young, a task they split down the middle. Male and female pigeons and doves feed their nestlings "pigeon's milk," a cheesy substance they manufacture in their crops. Discus and orange chromide fish feed their young with a nutritious mucus from the sides of their bodies.

(Which reminds me. I do not want to hear about the breast being just a modified sweat gland one more time, OK? That was a long time ago and it was a pretty radical modification. Milk isn't sweat. Do you ever hear people say "the sweat of human kindness," "She rode a sweat-white horse" or "got sweat?" There's a reason: Milk is different from sweat. Until I hear you describe your hand as a modified flipper, there will be no more talk of sweat glands.)

Male humans look pretty unhelpful next to pigeons. Newborn babies, still pumped full of maternal hormones, usually lactate slightly, producing a few drops of "witch's milk." Medical conditions like acromegaly (excess growth hormone) can induce male lactation.

Dr. Miriam Stoppard, author of "The Breast Book," agrees with Darwin that male nipples are more than rudimentary, cheerfully suggesting that "men could develop fully functional breasts given the right hormonal conditions."

That's right. If men would just submit themselves to an intense barrage of hormone therapy, affecting every organ system of the body in unknown ways, maybe they would be able to suckle their young and throw off the charge of reptilianism once and for all. But where is the research? Where is the funding? Where is the will?

Whither the male nipple? Is it ever likely to stomp off in an evolutionary snit over not getting any respect ("Enough about boar hogs!") and leave male humans as smooth-chested as stallions or bulls? It seems unlikely. They've managed to hang in there all these millennia, and many guys speak well of their nipples and would clearly vote to retain them. Ask any boar hog and he'll tell you the same.



~ http://www.salon.com/health/feature/1999/06/08/nipples/index.html

During my searching (that you won't do yourself, Xtreem ! *lol*), I discovered that there is a new fad emerging: women are having their hymen's surgically restored.

Is virginity's merit on the rise ?

Why would you do such a thing ?

My husband never checked to see if my hymen was still intact.

*shivers*

Oh, and Eil....why is the appendix a bad example ?

We do not know what it's function is. That is the same thing as not knowing what the function of the hymen is, right ?

This is a simple one:

The hymen was where there was

a little meat stuck to the rib

Eve was made out of, by God.

gorloche was pointing out in his post that 'use it or lose it' is simplistic from an evolutionary viewpoint. i was just pointing out that the appendix is not just apparently useless, but it can endanger a person.

it's not that the appendix is an utterly bad example, it's just not the best.

as to digestive function; if it has any at all, it is neglegible. people can survive just fine without it. all the scientific evidence points to the probability that it is vestigial.

quote:Originally posted by Eil:

gorloche was pointing out in his post that 'use it or lose it' is simplistic from an evolutionary viewpoint. i was just pointing out that the appendix is not just apparently useless, but it can endanger a person.

it's not that the appendix is an utterly bad example, it's just not the best.

as to digestive function; if it has any at all, it is neglegible. people can survive just fine without it. all the scientific evidence points to the probability that it is vestigial.

The appendix kills so few people though, that even on a small scale it wouldn't be enough to breed it out of the species.