I realize this is a very lengthy response to a very old column (19 May 2000), but I have to say the subject has been a minor irritant to me ever since its publication. If you’ll graciously permit –
As you may recall, Cecil’s piece discusses the probability that the candirú, a fish native to the Amazon, can actually swim into the male urethra by following a urine stream. And although it’s perhaps understandable that most attention would focus on helping (male) readers imagine the excruciating sensation of their penises being so violated, there’s another asymmetry in Cecil’s report – one that reveals what looks like a fundamental (sic!) misunderstanding of female anatomy. To establish the topic’s validity, Cecil first quotes a urologist, who writes of the candirú that it is “urinophilic and could swim up the urethra or into the vagina of the unwary native” micturating in the Amazon. In his analysis Cecil later writes that
“… it’s difficult to imagine how even the most agile of fishes could squirm into someone’s penis during a brief dip in the water, and in fact one [uncited] account says women are much more likely to be candirú victims due to the greater dimensions of the female aperture.”
This may be news to some (including the quoted urologist), but women do not pee out of their vaginas. Women have a urethra meatus located outside the vagina, below the clitoris. A fish that is urinophilic and would swim into the urethra of a male when following a urine stream would, logically, head for the same so-called “aperture” in a female victim – not for the vagina.
There are a number of options for understanding what’s going on in this column. One, the sources are accurate, and candirú somehow aren’t sensitive enough to tell exactly where urine comes from in females, despite having more than adequate aim when attacking males. Two, the sources are based on misinformation regarding the actual experience of female candirú victims. Or three, it’s all a gag.
The first case presents perceptive readers with a highly (I would say unacceptably) improbable scenario; the second two present the specter of either incompetent urologist/anthropologists or an incompetent readership, unable to recognize a hoax.
Whether it is the fish that is at fault, or the sources, or the reader, Cecil Himself has committed a further error, one which I would argue is based on not just his own uncritical reading of his sources, but on the basic misunderstanding of female anatomy described above:
When Cecil slyly refers (as in the quote above) to the “greater dimensions of the female aperture,” he is referring to one of two “apertures” – either the vagina or the urethra – in comparison to the male urethra. If the first, Cecil is guilty of uncritically reproducing an illogical argument as accurate expert testimony, perhaps due to his own lack of information about women’s bodies (i.e., he thinks women do pee from the vagina). If the second, he is even more benighted about female anatomy than I ever imagined, given that the female urethra is no larger an aperture than the male’s – indeed, it’s small enough to escape the notice of men who, despite intimate acquaintance with feminine nether-regions, continue to believe that women pee from their vaginas (which is way more men than I even want to think about).
Of course, Cecil protects his authority by suggesting that “It’s uncertain whether the candirú is actually ‘urinophilic’.” If the fish were not attracted to urine specifically, that might account for the sources’ reported vaginal attacks. However, the ambiguous cleverness of the phrase “greater dimensions of the female aperture” reinforces a pernicious mythology about women’s bodies and functions at the expense of both scientific accuracy and our collective quest for the real “straight dope.”
Moron or misogynist? You decide.