That’s why I said “like”, not “is”.
This may just be my very favorite piece of trivia ever.
“Personally, not what I’d choose - I like to have a little more room between the breathing and the pooping - but I won’t judge.”
Most (male) mammals have penis bones, and most marine mammals keep their genitalia inside.
Three separate orifices? Hmmm I want to Google this but I’m not sure where that would take me. :eek:
It’s not even ‘like’, in any meaningful sense.
Anus, vagina, urethra. Males are missing one of those, obviously. 
It’s certainly mine. When I was in elementary school, we went on a museum tour. The tour guide gave us a very long talk about how that “extra” bone in the seal skeleton was a vestigial structure that proved evolution, blah, blah, blah. When she came up for air, one of the other adults pulled her aside and explained what it really was.
As has been stated, orifices that shed waste products are usually located at the rear of an animal, so as the animal moves it leaves the waste products behind. Having your butthole on your head means you’re constantly traveling through your own waste. Note that snails with their twisted body plan, are one of the exceptions and have their anal opening over their shoulder, not at their rear.
And since the organism already has an orifice for releasing various bodily excretions into the environment, it is evolutionarily conservative to use that same orifice to release gametes. As has been stated, most vertebrates have a single cloaca for releasing urine, feces, and gametes. A penis or analogous copulatory organ is just a way to directly deposit sperm into the cloaca of another organism, rather than just pressing cloacas together, or releasing gametes into the water.
Oops, All I had to do was ask the wife. :o :smack:
Oh, that’s nothing. Elephants not only have retractable bits, they have *prehensile *retractable bits mounted on reciprocating springs. They’re too big to do the old in-out-in-out via pelvic motions, see, so their penis has to do all of the work on its own.
No, I do not know whether that means they can also discreetly masturbate without having to move at all. But… wouldn’t you ?