A small article posted today on CBS News describes the story of a woman charged with a crime, for two years of loud, vocal sex. According to the article, she's been so loud that she disturbs neighbors, children, the postman, even neighborhood dogs and cats have reportedly put together a union complaint (I made that last part up. I have a yippy neighbor's dog that is driving me nuts. I wonder if loud sex might drown it out?)

So Caroline Cartwright of Newcastle England has been sent to jail, and forced to live separately from her husband Steve, because of her loud "copulatory vocalizations." (I'm right now reading Chris Ryan's Sex at Dawn, which talks about this term). Cartwright has been cited and jailed already for this, and now faces her "last chance" from the court. Her story? That's "natural" for her to be loud when having sex with her husband.

Is it natural? In fact, loud female sex DOES serve a function (other than annoying neighbors). It is, to put it mildly, a marketing ploy. When female monkeys are loud during sex with a male, it draws the attention of other males. Who show up and "get in line." How does this benefit the female? She gets the benefit of sperm competition between multiple males, and it increases the evolutionary/genetic success of a child that might result. Female monkeys are quiet when other females are around though, because of the risk that the female attention might lead to the male switching midstream, as it were.