Stupid Question ™
By John Ruch
© 1999
Q: Do any female
animals besides humans have orgasms?
—Robert
A: Probably. But we won’t find them among the non-mammals. Their sexual responses are almost certainly more a matter of chemically triggered instinct than pleasure.
Mammals, with their highly developed emotional systems, are a different lot. All male mammals apparently experience pleasure in conjunction with ejaculation—an evolutionary reward for mating.
The female clitoris is the exact same structure as the penis, simply left undeveloped by male hormones. It has the nerve structure of the penis and can experience the same sexual pleasure.
All female mammals have clitorises, and thus probably have at least the capacity for something akin to orgasm. (We have to remember that abstract human consciousness surely gives us a different experience of “pleasure.”) However, they rarely display such a response during regular intercourse, which is usually very brief and occasionally painful.
Mirroring the apparent experiences of almost all female mammals, human females rarely achieve orgasm from intercourse alone—the clitoris isn’t in a good place to be stimulated.
Humans, of course, have learned that additional stimulation can help out. So have other smart mammals, such as dolphins, elephants, monkeys, orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees.
Evidence of actual female-animal orgasm, however, is more fleeting and vague, relying on observation of facial expressions, vocalizations and body movements that could all mean other things. (Even pro-bestiality literature—yes, I’ve been on the Internet—is rather vague on the topic of animal orgasm.)
A few experiments, however, indicate some animals have capacity for orgasm, whether they actually experience it in nature or not. Female chimps and rhesus macaque monkeys have been stimulated clitorally and vaginally in labs, with most eventually experiencing uterine contractions similar to those of human orgasm.
Cows have also been manually stimulated to vaginal contractions interpreted as orgasm.
Just as human notions of pleasure shouldn’t automatically be applied to animal sex, anatomical assumptions shouldn’t be made, either. In monkeys and apes, the clitoris is actually situated at the base of the vagina rather than at the top, increasing stimulation during regular sex.
Also, the clitoris may not be the sole source of stimulation in non-human primates. In marmosets, there’s evidence of some intravaginal sexual sensitivity as well (though actual orgasmic potential wasn’t tested).
Perhaps the
most compelling evidence for female animal orgasm is spontaneous orgasming. A small percentage of women experience
spontaneous orgasms in dream states during sleep. If vaginal contractions and
lubrication mean anything, there’s evidence that female dogs in heat experience
this as well.