This week, a new research study on DOLPHIN CLITORISES was published. Brennan and colleagues have examined bottlenose dolphin's clits, and we're delighted to share with you all the new things we've learned about our clicky friends and their sex lives.
Before this study, there's two things that are known about female dolphins and their clitorises.
1. They have them.
2. Female dolphins are very, very horny.
1. They have them.
2. Female dolphins are very, very horny.
Female dolphins participate very enthusiastically in sexual activities. They participate in foreplay during consensual sex with males, and have been seen to engage in penis-in-vagina sex when they're not in a fertile period.
(we specify "consensual" here, because in some bottlenose dolphin cultures, males engage in gang rape)
Female dolphins are also partial to a bit of lesbian sex, and stimulate one another with their snouts, their fins, and their flukes.
And they also masturbate by rubbing themselves on things, including the sandy ocean floor, which sounds very uncomfortable to us, but they seem to be into it.
In short, it's already known that female dolphins appear to experience sexual pleasure and also have clitorises. So what's new?
The study by Brennan and colleagues is an anatomical deep dive into dolphin clitorises. They conducted a detailed examination of the clitorises of dead dolphins, taking a look at nerves, structure, and tissue.
The dolphin clitoris is located at the vaginal opening. It has a hood, a glans, a clitoral body and crura. Their clitorises are made of erectile tissue, and there's lots of space for it to become erect.
The hood is wrinkled, suggesting it grows erect, and there's a bend in the body which suggests it can extend during erection!
But what's especially exciting about this study is that animal vaginas are, in general, very overlooked in research. Only about 8% of studies on animal genitals in the last 25 years or so have focused exclusively on vaginas.
Clitorises are even less well-researched. Heck, it's only been in the last two decades or so that detailed anatomical research on the HUMAN clitoris has been happening.
So, do dolphins experience pleasure? That's a question for the philosophers. What this study has found is that they have a clitoris with nerve endings similar to humans.
You can read the full paper here, which includes images of the structure and microscopic examination of blood vessels and nerves. You can read the whole study here to learn all about the anatomy of dolphin clitorises. cell.com/current-biolog…
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