The Metropolis

It Could Be Worse: We Could All Have Knives for Penises

Chuck Ansbacher | Thursday 10 March, 2011 15:56

If there is a combination of two words that should send chills down the spines of all humans the world over, it is “spiky penis.” Right up there with “toothy vagina” and “free Budweiser,” it’s the kind of thing we can all, regardless of race, creed and political bent, universally yell a loud and firm “NO THANKS!” at. And yet, unlike those last two things, spiky penises could have very well been a reality of the human race.

Yes, as if gin and tonic wasn’t enough, now there’s a whole second reason to be happy to be human beings — we, unlike our close relatives the chimpanzees and the mice, don’t have really sharp dicks. Apparently this benefit of humanity is thanks to our good friend evolution.

Sex would be a very different proposition for humans if — like some animals including chimpanzees, macaques and mice — men had penises studded with small, hard spines.

Now researchers at Stanford University in California have found a molecular mechanism for how the human penis could have evolved to be so distinctly spine-free. They have pinpointed it as the loss of a particular chunk of non-coding DNA that influences the expression of the androgen receptor gene involved in hormone signaling.

Scientists seem to believe that this smoothening evolutionary leap was made in order to facilitate a more monogamous lifestyle, to which we say, “What?”

As anyone woman who has ever had sex can attest, one of the very best things about it is that it doesn’t feel like you’re getting repeatedly stabbed with a knife in your vagina (I’m guessing here). Can you imagine something making you go monogamous, nay, celibate, faster than a good old fashioned sharp dagger dick? Our species would have gone the way of the dodo way before the dodo even existed.

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