Penises Are Built To 'Scoop Out' Other Men's Semen From Your Vagina

Every romance novel, soap opera, and movie romance likes to make it seem as if the best sex — the most satisfying and hottest sex — lasts a really, really long time. When we compare our ordinary sex lives with these sexual myths, we end up feeling a little cheated.

What's wrong with us that we can't have sex that lasts all night long" The truth is, while sex can be amazing and incredible, we don't really want it to last forever. We need recovery time and cuddling so we can gear up for the next session.

It's wrong to compare our sex lives to fictional sex lives, especially if you've been with the same partner for a while.

The truth is that on average, penetrative sex doesn't last that long — only about four to five minutes — and when you look at it as a biological and evolutionary function, why does it even take that long? If the whole point of sex is a sperm delivery system, all sex really needs to achieve is to put some sperm into a vagina. And that's, what, 30 seconds tops?

"Why all the thrusting and bumping?" asks Dr. Brendan Zietsch, a psychologist from the University of Queensland, in an article for The Conversationalist. "Instead of sliding the penis in and out many hundreds of times per sexual session, why not put it in once, ejaculate, and then go have a lemonade and get on with the rest of your day?"

Yes, sex is fun and should be enjoyable for everyone involved, but it wasn't created for our enjoyment; it was created to continue the species.

"Remember, evolution doesn't care about fun per se — it generally only designs things to be enjoyable if they helped our ancestors pass on their genes to future generations," Dr. Zietsch said.

And luckily, research has found a possible reason why sex is more than just insertion and immediate ejaculation.

In a 2003 study, researchers used artificial vaginas, penises, and sperm (in this case, corn syrup) to discover that the ridge around the head of the penis is able to scoop out pre-existing syrup from the vagina. In other words, the repeated thrusting that men do during sex could be as a way to dislodge other men's semen before they ejaculate. This ensures that their sperm won't have any competition getting to the egg first for fertilization.

"Incidentally, this could explain why it becomes painful for a man to continue thrusting after ejaculating, since that would risk scooping out his own semen as well," wrote Dr. Zietsch.

By the way, in case it wasn't clear enough, the study was called "The Human Penis as a Semen Displacement Device," and that's not exactly the stuff of romance novels or steamy television shows.

So thank evolution for making sex last long enough for both parties to get some fun and orgasms, but try not to think of intercourse as being scooped out. There's nothing hot about that at all.