'It's not that some species woke up one day and started doing it. This is an ancient, evolved trait.'
"It's not that some species woke up one day and started doing it. This is an ancient, evolved trait.""It's not that some species woke up one day and started doing it. This is an ancient, evolved trait."Thanks to science, we may now have a good idea of when our ancestors first started pleasuring themselves — and it could help answer why they would develop such a practice when, on its face, it seems to provide no evolutionary benefit.
Yet the old way of thinking brushed off this "autosexual" behavior as aberrant, arising mostly as a stress response in monkeys and apes held in captivity. This hypothesis, though, failed to explain why primatologists would go on to frequently observe this behavior in the wild. From there, the researchers used mathematical modeling to construct an evolutionary history of the behavior across primate species, which is how they discovered that, not only have primates been cranking it for tens of millions of years, but that the behavior has remained ubiquitous throughout the ages.Exactly why this behavior emerged in the first place eludes scientists, but they have a few strong theories — for males at least.
Or, similarly, this same principle could also flush out old and expiring sperm. But the most amusing explanation, in our opinion, is that masturbating could help a weaker male finish the job more quickly with a partner before a dominant male could stop him. Both of these theories, the researchers say, would help boost a male's chance of impregnating a partner, granting them an evolutionary advantage.
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