Masturbation Evolved in Primates as a healthy Sexual Behavior
Despite centuries of taboo and titillation, masturbation in primates appears to serve an evolutionary purpose. A study published June 6 in the journal Proceedings of The Royal Society B, found that self-stimulating increases reproductive success and helps primates avoid sexually transmitted infections (STI), at least in males. [Related from PopSci+: These sex toys are designed to heal, one orgasm at a time.] Self-pleasure is common across the animal kingdom, but is particularly frequent in primates including humans. The behavior was considered by some scientists to be either pathological or simply a by-product of sexual arousal. Recorded observations were also too fragmented to fully understand masturbation’s distribution, evolutionary history, or adaptive significance. In this new study, a team of researchers built a dataset on primate masturbation from close to 400 sources, including 246 published academic papers, and 150 questionnaires and personal communications from zookeepers and primatologists. To understand why and when the practice evolved in both females and males, the authors [...]