Are there any creatures that suffer from sex?

 On March 11, 2016, Neil deGrasse Tyson, known for his hosting duties in the cosmos documentary series and for being an accomplished astrophysicist, tweeted. In fact, while it was intended to make a good reference, it also revealed a false perception in the field of evolutionary biology.

Tyson tweeted, "If there were ever a species for whom sex hurt, it surely went extinct long ago."

Although the idea that sex must be pleasant for living things to continue to breed and sustain their generation seems logical at first glance, unfortunately, evolution does not work like this.

Carin Bondar, a biologist and author of” Wild Sex: The Science Behind Mating in the Animal Kingdom" says:

 

"People sometimes have a false perception that because we enjoy sex, other animals should take it. This could not be a more distant thought than a fact that covers 99% of the animal kingdom."

 

Because egg production is a more costly process than sperm production, females have to be more selective when choosing their sex partners. For this reason, many different reproductive strategies have developed in nature. This has made the whole process painstaking, full of strife and struggle.

Although it is thought that sex should be enjoyable to ensure this, when we consider the reproductive event that is the main purpose of sex and the situation of ensuring the continuation of its kind, Carin Bondar answers:

 

"Absolutely no. How you feel has nothing to do with it."

 

Although it is believed that unattractive sexual intercourse will lead to abstinence from Sex and eventually the extinction of the species, many painful or even fatal sexual behaviors are observed in animals that continue to exist today.

Now let's look at some animals where sex hurts:

People

Sex can be quite painful, even for humans. About 176 million women in the world have a mostly undiagnosed disease: endometriosis, a disorder that affects the uterine wall and causes pain during or after intercourse.

Dyspareunia, a medical term meaning” painful sexual intercourse", is a disorder that can develop due to many causes, ranging from a very simple anatomical problem to complex psychosocial causes.

Antechinus

Antechinus is a genus of mammal found in Australia and New Guinea, with 15 described species. Male antechinus find as many female Antechinus as they can during the 2-week breeding season, forcing them to mate. Sometimes this sexual intercourse can last up to 14 hours.

Nature confirms Queen's song “Too Much Love Will Kill you”. Male antechinus mate so much that they become blind, hair falls out, wounds appear on their bodies, and die from dismemberment.

Cats

In March, cats have a mating behavior that you can also observe, which is quite painful for females. And those cute male cats that we feed in our homes actually have spiky penises. For more information about this, please check out our article Here.

Mantissa

Mantis is the common name for about 1,800 species of insects in the suborder Mantodea, which together with cockroaches make up the Dictyoptera order. The most common type of Praying Mantis is Mantis religiosa, known as praying mantis, because it looks like it is praying when its two feet in front bend through the joints. Females of praying mantis eat their males after mating, as many female spiders do.

Ducks

Take mallard ducks (Wild Duck, Anas platyrhynchos). Female ducks have vaginas in the form of an intricate maze of twists, turns and even cul-de-sacs. Male ducks, on the other hand, have penises that have evolved together with the vaginas of female ducks, curled in a spiral shape. This strategy allowed females to have anatomical control over this situation, even though they were forced to mate, having to be with more than one partner against their will.

 

The vaginas of this duck species we are talking about are shaped in clockwise spirals. Although it is thought that there should be a key-lock model between the reproductive organs, nature offers us the opposite: the penises are shaped like a spiral counterclockwise, and in this species, the reproductive organs do not fit the key-lock model. We leave it to you to imagine how painful this could be.

Bedbug

Male bedbugs cleave the bellies of their females with their sharp penises and leave their offspring inside. This behavior is also known as traumatic insemination (traumatic insemination) or hypodermic insemination (hypodermic insemination).

 

Although there are countless more examples in nature, we think that so many examples are enough. Robert Wiedenmann, head of the Department of Entomology (Insect Science) at the University of Arkansas, says:

 

"I don't think this condition will fit the definition of ‘pain’. In the absence of pain receptors, there is nothing to indicate that the insect is being harmed."

 

If the method works, it doesn't matter how uncomfortable, painful or deadly reproductive behavior is. Wiedenmann says:

 

"As long as it is more successful than the other way around, these reproductive behaviors can be sustained for generations."

 

When it comes to the survival of generations of species, it doesn't really matter who's having a good time.