re: #367 big steve

joking aside, I have often wondered why human estrus cycles were similar to lunar cycles. Are there any good theories on how this evolved.

Women who live together have their menstrual cycles synchronize, so they can compete for available males, and women who live out of doors evolved to become fertile during the full moon, when they can more easily be sought out at night to breed.

Virile men have a cycle, too. If they don’t have sex for a month, they tend to have a wet dream (nocturnal emission). This cuts down on birth defects by expelling old sperms (the genetic material of which degrades much more rapidly than does the genetic material in womens’ eggs), making way for fresh, nondegraded sperm.