Mary Roach

Cheese crumbs spread in front of a pair of copulating rats will distract the female, but not the male.

Okay.

And you know that he did that.

He did.

He put the crumbs out.

Of course.

And he watched, you know.

And the female's like, oh, what's that?

Oh, something to eat.

And the male's like, what are you talking about?

Why are you even – oh, my God.

Well, with men, orgasm is obviously tied to reproduction.

You know, you have ejaculation, which delivers the semen, and that is how conception happens.

So,

it's obvious what function it serves.

And with women, it wasn't so clear.

But there was, for centuries, this belief that it was tied to conception and that the contractions, uterine contractions that happened during orgasm, they thought there was this belief that they were

sucking up the semen, like delivering it more quickly and therefore boosting the odds of conception.

You know, as far back as the 1700s, there was this belief that—and it was good for women because, you know, if a woman was having trouble conceiving, they sort of take the man aside and go—

Like there was a famous line, who knows if it's true, Empress Maria, the Habsburg monarchy, Maria Theresa was having trouble conceiving and the royal physician takes the husband aside and goes, you know, the opinion of the physicians that the vulva of her majesty should be titillated for some time prior to intercourse.