How were sexual organisms created from asexual organisms.?

Question

This is a mind-boggler to me and I'm wondering if any biology geniuses out there have the answer (...and if it involves religion, I'm spamming your account with naughty emails). Anyways, we all know asexual organisms clone themselves to produce an exact copy of itself, whereas sexual organisms combine DNA and create something with variation. Now, I'm wondering, since asexual organisms supposedly came first, how did evolution create sexual organisms. Obviously asexual organisms weren't just like "Let's combine our DNA to make something with variation and a better chance for survivial in a catastrophe!" What happened? How did cloning (asexual reproduction) turn into sex (sexual reproduction)? Mother nature really is intelligent.

I guess some of this stuff is a little over my head and will take a little while to soak in. I guess the question I'm asking is "what started it?" I'm leaning toward answer #2, the plasmid conjunction thing, but like I said, the concept is still taking awhile to soak in. I think just the simple fact that we are here before our sun dies off defies the odds a billion to one. I mean, to me right now it seems as if the building blocks of life (atoms -> DNA -> organisms) just blows my mind.

Answer 1

It probably got started with a variation on bacterial conjugation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterial_conjugation

while conjugation isn't sexual, somewhere way back when some single cells started differentiating and requiring conjugate material from other cells to divide. Once the cells started to differentiate, they evolved singles bars, online dating, and the penis, in that order.

Tomorrow, I'll explain why we have pubic hair.

Answer 2

I believe your question goes farther back than that.
If the initial primordial evolutionary event of abiogenesis (life from the non-living) was indeed true, it had continue if it was to be successful. Here is a first-time scenario for your studied consideration :
When the conditions were just right- enough for a beginning of organic life, some carbon, some nitrogen, some oxygen and some hydrogen elements individually decided to either divorce themselves from their existing inorganic chemically bonded relationships which they felt to be too confining or else to relinquish their unattached free ionic states because they were unfulfilling. This was intended both independently and coincidently in order to mutually form themselves into an as yet unheard-of collective, autonomous entity. So they convoked and did succeed in creating a confederation both philosophically and physiologically to become the very first living cell of protoplasm. Then by mutual consensus, following the ever- popular one- gene-one- vote principle, this unique primordial cell decided to address itself as "John". However, the conditions were just not right enough for it to continue because there was no other protoplasm around for it to ingest nor with which to propogate because there was no "Marsha" for it to to, er, ah - , well, you know, spawn. Alas, poor John soon died hungry and horny.
edited- addition
The anthromorphic style of the above is intended in mimicry and mockery of the bad science texts which predominate the explanations of evolutionary dogma.

Answer 3

I gave an answer to this one on another thread a while back:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=?qid=20070606053101AAVwYte

Check out this page too:
http://www.dorak.info/evolution/sreprod.html

Answer 4

Theory of evolution cannot explain this phenomenon