Hello new ideas about... oh, sex?

Recently I finished our first reading outside the textbook for the woman's studies class is the introduction from a book written by (I really don't want to get out of my warm bed to find the article so *Insert Name Here*). The class is entitled Language and Gender. The first point Dr. P made our first day of class, this is not a class about how women and men talk to each other- and I breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing I wanted was another person (or an entire semester) how relationships are "supposed" to work. Of course, I have high respect for scholars in the field who study interpersonal communication, but it's really not for me. Instead, this class is about how we communicate the ideas of gender/sex as a society. Wait... that sounds like, it just might be rhetorical! So, the point is, I'm really excited about this class. I consider myself a feminist, but I obviously do not agree with some ideas out there under the banner of feminism. Getting a clearer idea of the theories out there and from a communication perspective, should be extremely beneficial.

So, back to the reading. The first few pages talk about this argument during the Enlightenment that concluded that the female orgasm is not necessary for conception. To today's post-enlightenment, scientifically advance world, that seems to be self-evident. So much so that I'm having problems with the idea that this was a discovery. Must revisit this when I'm not so tired, because surely I'm just missing something. But wouldn't they have figured this out long before this?