What differences would there be in the individual in particular and society in general had the human species evolved a baculum?

That’s a hard question.

I think it’s impossible to answer. I have no bones to pick about your asking it, but there are a million years of evolution without bacula. It’s really impossible to speculate how mankind would have evolved if something had been different a million years ago.

I will say that porn probably wouldn’t be as interesting.

I don’t know.

I can just guess that fertilizing would be more difficult :)

“The evolutionary biologist[11] Richard Dawkins speculated in 2006 that the loss of the bone in humans, when it is present in our nearest related species the chimpanzee, is a result of sexual selection by females looking for honest signals of good health in prospective mates.” From Wikipedia
There you go, it is that shopping gene in women that led to the evolution away from the baculum.

But consider, don’t most animals that have a baculum have it in a sheath? If it were the same in humans would there be less need for covering this area and so our entire structure of social mores concerning modesty would be rewritten. What about urination? How would you maneuver it to pee downward? (of course I mean if it were larger in size than that of a chimpanzee, with them, it is almost not worth having).

What’s a baculum?

Pfizer stock would not be anywhere near it’s present state with no viagra to sell.

@zenvelo that was one of my thoughts as well!

@janbb Penile bone.

OK… I’ll bite and makea guess.

The baculum stiffens up the penis to make an erection that likely aids in fertilization. That means even unhelathy male specimens can reproduce. Without it, undernourished or diseased males would have greater diffiulty in reproducing. Healthy well fed males are able to reproduce without it.
A higher percentage of men with Type I and II diabetes have ED (and thus have difficulty reproducing).
With the baculum we could expect to see more males with diabetes. Diets would change and there would be fewer meat eaters: more gathering – less hunting. That’s my guess.

If I were running the show I would not use the penis for both urination and reproduction. Those are two critical systems and clearly the penis becomes a dangerous pinch point in overall system reliability. I’d have an upper penis for reproduction and a lower for urination. Each could be sized accordingly and optimized for best performance.
I would size the reproduction plumbing to handle a 10 ml payload delivery over an extended period of time – say 5 minutes. The lower would be sized to deliver 500ml in less than a minute.

@LuckyGuy an engineer?

Well, Kirby would be out of business….wait. Baculum. I have to look that up…“The baculum (also penis bone, penile bone or os penis) is a bone found in the penis of many placental mammals. It is absent in humans, but present in other primates, such as the gorilla and chimpanzee. The bone aids sexual intercourse by maintaining sufficient stiffness during sexual penetration.”

Hmm. Well. I guess it would give the word “boner” a whole new meaning. Also, we wouldn’t need Viagra.

@rojo Gee… can you tell?
Obviously nobody ran a FMEA on that design. A DFMA might have been completed and, no doubt, someone received a performance bonus for the thrifty packaging.

My design would be more robust. I would also give the operator control of the payload production system. When a viable payload is required, it must be ordered at least one week in advance and the order process would only begin when the system was activated by coming in contact with the saliva of an XX holder. Unwanted pregnancies would be reduced greatly.

The reason the penis is used for both urination and reproduction is of legacy in the design. Testicles started out as primitive kidneys (pronephros). Some how, newer and better kidneys evoled next to the older ones. As the newer kidneys got tasked with urine regulation, the older ones took up sperm production, using the vessels already in place.