Slate reports on animal onanism
Slate's culture editor John Swansburg says,
Hands or Paws or Anything They GotMasturbation in the animal kingdom.Just posted an article by my colleague Dan Engber on the subject of animal masturbation. It turns out that onanism has been observed throughout the animal kingdom: dogs do it, cats do it, horses do it, turtles do it, birds love to do it. Some moose can even bring themselves to sexual climax by just rubbing their antlers on a tree (!).
Dan's article explores the scientific explanations for why animals might have evolved this behavior. There's also an accompanying video slide show -- it turns out folks are very fond of posting footage of their frisky pets, or of the strange activity they saw a koala enjoying at the zoo...
the latest
latest episodes
Scientists have discovered that animals do things that feel good and avoid activities that are painful. /sarcasm
Not to be pedantic, but onanism is when the male pulls out and then ejaculates. a.k.a coitus interruptus.
cf. Genesis 38:9
"And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother."
It's not masturbating.
I suppose you could argue that one is a subset of the other, if the masturbation is to climax....
Birds do it, bees do it,
Even educated fleas do it!
what's so remarkable about practice?
Whoa. That turtle penis is creepy...
So if I'm to judge by the picture of the cat, if you jerk off you WILL get hairy palms?
"Not to be pedantic, but onanism is when the male pulls out and then ejaculates. a.k.a coitus interruptus."
And over time it has come to include masturbation. While the original act was pulling out, the sin of Onan has been expanded to include any sort of nonprocreative "spilling of seed". You're pedantic, but incorrect.
There's also a fascinating book about all sorts of animal sexual hijinks: Biological Exuberance. The short version: animals are just as kinky as humans. Which is no suprise, since humans are animals too.
Oh oh.. I think my cat learned that from me !
Heh, heh. Brace yourself for the most abject self-promotion of all time...
From my novel-in-progress:
While we ate Muffin, a small tan-and-white tangle of hair, crouched under the glass table and slurped away at herself with the hysterical, desperate energy you’d expect from a terrier.
“Look at that,” Dierdre said. “She knows exactly what to do!” I was never able to figure out why Dierdre was so proud of her masturbating dog.
And I'm obligated by law to remind Hollando of Dorothy Parker's parakeet; he was named Onan, because he spilled his seed upon the ground.
Sean Craven @ 9 - "While we ate Muffin, a small tan-and-white tangle of hair," could really use another comma...
There's a house in neighborhood I walk my dog* through now and then. The owner keeps his business truck in the driveway. It's labeled "ONAN PUMPS."
Wow. I wonder if whoever named that company knew his Bible.
* As far as I know, she . . . doesn't. Spayed. Anyway, every part of her brain that doesn't involve eating and peeing is devoted toward her campaign against cats and squirrels.
Having never been fascinated with masturbating animals that weren't the female human kind I shrug my shoulders and move on with my day.
Biological Exuberance was -so- "a few years ago."
What you want now is Masturbation, It's OK! by The Wet Spots.
@13 If you're not even a little bit fascinated by a masturbating bull elephant then you're just beyond hope. I don't know what else to say.
At the Oregon Zoo in Portland, it is not uncommon to see the sea otters float gently to the surface on their back, unwrap their furry little otter-pop and go to town, as the say, orally. It looks rather like footage you have seen of otters eating shellfish while floating on their backs, except that when you take a closer look it is awfully pink.
The best part is listening to parents try to explain to children what exactly the otter is doing, or more often why they really ought to go over to see the elephants instead.
Oh great now every time I hear that cute little song "All God's creatures got a place in the choir" I'm going to think about what they're doing with their dirty little hands or paws or anything they got now.
Unfortunately, all of those animals are going to hell.
i'm pretty sure a unicorn chaser would involve a pretty serious conflict of interest here.
"Some moose can even bring themselves to sexual climax by just rubbing their antlers on a tree..."
I wonder what the tree's opinion of that was. Rudy, if you're out there, any possibility of getting some feedback?
#18:
Depending on who you believe, unicorns are either too pure of spirit to masturbate, or they mount the end of the rainbow. ("Uh, that's not pixie dust Tinkerbelle, it's uhm, ah . . . hey, let's go see the elephants!")
Yeah, well, I wish I'd never heard of kitten-on-kitten oral sex. And now you wish you'd never heard of it either.
thanks for mentioning the Wet Spots,Ian, they are an insufficiently regarded cultural treasure.
Humans are animals too.
The writer Dorothy Parker had a pet parrot she named Onan because, as she explained, it was always spilling its seed.
It took me a moment to realize that the article is
Hands or Paws or Anything They Got:
Masturbation in the animal kingdom.
and not...
Hands or Paws or Anything:
They Got Masturbation in the animal kingdom.
We had a lovebird and she would do this ALL the time. It was really disturbing. You'd be sitting watching TV and all of a sudden she'd spread her wings and start going at her little sleeping tube. The chirps she made were freaky too.
Guh. Gives me the willies just thinking about it!
Put it this way - if I'd been a little faster with the camera a few years back, there would be a Youtube video titled something along the lines of "Lesbian Pussy 69" showing our two female cats engaging in what certainly looked to be mutual muff-diving. But I was too slow, dammit.
I'm not sure which is funnier, the pixelated photo of the cat, or the video of the cat in action set to sexy sexy Serge Gainsbourg.
Also, this makes me feel bad about spaying/neutering pets; it's not like they have a lot to do around the house anyway when nobody's home (of course the alternate would be worse for several reasons.)
The best video is the one of the walrus. He is truly enjoying himself.