"**Our distant ancestors didn’t have penises at all**. When a man met a woman and they wanted to make babies, she laid eggs and he discharged his milt (semen) over them. That wasn’t easy, because they lived in water. "**Our (very) distant ancestors were fish** after all and most types of fish still don’t have a penis. One blue moon, some fish had had enough of all that water and they crawled ashore. From those pioneers came amphibians. Amphibians still need water to breed, which explains why frogs don’t have a penis either. When you can only reproduce with enough water nearby, you’re not, unfortunately, free to roam the world. So reptiles invented internal fertilisation – the females mimicked the wet conditions of the frog pond inside their bodies. This meant they could be fertilised wherever they wanted, even without any water in sight. **All that was needed was for the male to have an organ that would bring his sperm into contact with the eggs inside the female’s body. And thus the penis took to the stage**. We are still walking around with that organ today." ([Location 182](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089QJDCV4&location=182)) --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[evolution]], [[reproduction]], **Source** -- [[20250426112058 - B - Members Club]]