# Other species and anal sex **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 23, 2008, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198 "2008-10-23T12:46:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f14d63/32.png) [@Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesus_Harold_Christ)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/1 "2008-10-23T12:46:40Z")
Do other species engage in intraspecies anal sex? ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/2 "2008-10-23T12:58:55Z")
Wow. I’m gonna get no, as the vast majority of animals that have sex don’t actually do so for physical gratification. Plus, it would tend to be counter-evolutionary. We, as thinking creatures, are a bit different in this regard, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f0a364/32.png) [@Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rube_E.Tewesday)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/3 "2008-10-23T13:04:26Z")
I’ve heard of farm bulls doing it, both for fun and as a means of showing dominance. ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/4 "2008-10-23T13:06:02Z")
What are you talking about? I think most species engage in sex for physical gratification. They don’t know the connection between sex and babies, so why else would they do it? Oh, and as far as inter-species anal sex, I think you should ask Scylla. I remember he has a pertty good story about goats and a chicken. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/5 "2008-10-23T13:59:25Z")
Male dolphins are always trying to do it to reluctant female dolphins. That’s why you always here the feamles saying “En-eh! En-eh!” ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/6 "2008-10-23T14:04:20Z")
> [@flight](#): > > What are you talking about? I think most species engage in sex for physical gratification. They don’t know the connection between sex and babies, so why else would they do it? Hormonal cues and whatnot. If they did it for gratification, why would cats only mate when in heat, instead of humping all the time? IANAV, but I do seem to recall reading that some males appear to get a “pleasure” sensation out of the actual orgasm, but that most non-human females get nothing out of the entire act. I’ll spend the afternoon trying to dig up some cites, if nobody else comes along before then. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/7 "2008-10-23T14:15:09Z")
> [@Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](#): > > Do other species engage in intraspecies anal sex? As animals outside of the mammal category only have one opening in the hind regions that handles urine, feces, and sexual activities called a “cloaca” one could probably argue that either none of them have anal sex, not having an anus as we define the term in mammals, or that all of them have nothing but anal sex since everything goes through the same opening. (I think, maybe, monotremes also have a cloaca but I can’t remember for sure, so the above might even apply to some mammals, too) ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/8 "2008-10-23T14:17:43Z")
> [@Tristan](#): > > Hormonal cues and whatnot. > > If they did it for gratification, why would cats only mate when in heat, instead of humping all the time? Can’t speak for cats, but I’ve had leg-humping dogs and my shin sure as heck doesn’t give off bitch-in-heat hormones. Presumably, the dog enjoys this. I’ve also had several birds that engaged in masturbatory activities with the living room couch and it seemed unrelated to their breeding cycles. Again, they seemed to be enjoying the rubbing. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/9 "2008-10-23T15:19:15Z")
Dolphins fuck one anothers’ blowholes. So there’s at least one animal that isn’t orificially discriminatory. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/10 "2008-10-23T15:31:00Z")
Bonobos share humans sexual socializing, and practice oral sex, so it seems reasonable that they might try anal sex. This site claims they do: > **[News, Politics, Sports, Mail & Latest Headlines - AOL.com](https://www.aol.com/news/)** > > Get breaking news and the latest headlines on business, entertainment, politics, world news, tech, sports, videos and much more from AOL > [@](#): > > The July 30 (2007) issue of the New Yorker has a fascinating article on the work of the German anthropologist Gottfried Hohmann, who is considered the world’s leading authority on bonobos in the wild. The key term here is “in the wild.” Most of the research on bonobos to date has been done by the Dutch anthropologist Frans de Waal. Studying bonobos in cages, de Waal discovered that bonobos seem to have sex a lot: oral sex, **anal sex** , all kinds of sex. In de Waal’s famous portrait, the bonobo emerges as a creature much more interested in sex than in work or power or anything else. In other words, de Waal’s bonobos bore a startling similarity to the Dutch. Bolding and (2007) mine ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/11 "2008-10-23T15:34:29Z")
Here’s another: [http://askville.amazon.com/heard-species-animals-mate-sex-true-gay-proven/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=7511331](http://askville.amazon.com/heard-species-animals-mate-sex-true-gay-proven/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=7511331) > [@](#): > > You get both bisexual and purely homosexual behavior in some species. One study cites two male monkeys who engaged in anal sex with each other and who could not be induced to mate with a female. This is almost a perfect model of purely male homosexuality in the human species. (You have to take into account that this is in captivity, not in the wild, and which can lead to all sorts of behaviors that they wouldn’t necessarily do otherwise.) The cited article is "Ambisexual behavior with male-male anal penetration in male rhesus monkeys " in **Archives of Sexual Behavior** , vol. **5** , issue 1, pp. 9-14, January 1976. [http://www.springerlink.com/content/n424t1985133j770/](http://www.springerlink.com/content/n424t1985133j770/) So there’s another species. ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/12 "2008-10-23T15:35:23Z")
There is a [book](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031225377X/ref=cm_rdp_product) about animal homosexual behavior, but all I know about it is from watching Ricky Gervais make fun of the book’s [sketches](http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/3052/snap3db0.jpg) in his comedy show. EDIT: since we are listing species, Gervais showed sketches from the book which included birds, macaques, hedgehogs and dolphins. ---
**Author:** ![Interconnected\_Series\_of\_Tubes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/13edae/32.png) [@Interconnected\_Series\_of\_Tubes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interconnected_Series_of_Tubes)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/13 "2008-10-23T15:55:28Z")
Anal sex sounds like it would carry a high risk of disease transmission and cause evolutionarily useless (no babies) damage to delicate, ah, _parts._ From a standpoint of natural selection alone, it seems highly unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/14 "2008-10-23T16:07:56Z")
Yeah. What is the evolutionary advantage of anal sex? It seems to me the desire for it should be selected against in humans. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/15 "2008-10-23T16:15:55Z")
I worked with a guy who was proud of his love of anal sex. He was in a club ,even. He got real pissed when I said how handy it was, dogs,cats,sheep,men ,women ,livestock all the same to him. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/16 "2008-10-23T16:34:56Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > I worked with a guy who was proud of his love of anal sex. He was in a club ,even. He got real pissed when I said how handy it was, dogs,cats,sheep,men ,women ,livestock all the same to him. Now _that’s_ funny.😛 ---
**Author:** ![Ludy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Ludy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludy)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/17 "2008-10-23T16:41:00Z")
> [@Rube\_E.Tewesday](#): > > I’ve heard of farm bulls doing it, both for fun and as a means of showing dominance. I was going to say the same thing. As a teenager my parents dragged me to see a grandstand show at the Stampede. I hated the show and spent the time watching one really randy bull mount and pound away at the other bulls in the pen. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/18 "2008-10-23T19:34:18Z")
> [@](#): > > Hormonal cues and whatnot. And how do you think hormonal cues work? Hormones cause animals (including humans) to have sex by making sex feel good. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/19 "2008-10-23T19:38:38Z")
> [@Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](#): > > Do other species engage in intraspecies anal sex? Not with ME they don’t, Bub. It’s straight sex or nothing, regardless of species. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198/20 "2008-10-23T19:53:17Z")
> [@flight](#): > > What are you talking about? I think most species engage in sex for physical gratification. They don’t know the connection between sex and babies, so why else would they do it? > > Oh, and as far as inter-species anal sex, I think you should ask Scylla. I remember he has a pertty good story about goats and a chicken. Chickens?! Eeewwwww! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-species-and-anal-sex/469198.md?page=2)