Science

Hey, Neil deGrasse Tyson, These Animals Have Sex That Hurts

Some people seem to think that animal sex wouldn't exist if it hurt. Those people are wrong.
This image may contain Animal Rodent Mammal and Rat
Credit: Gary Cranitch/Queensland MuseumGary Cranitch/Queensland Museum
  • Image may contain Text Human and Person

    Today, Neil DeGrasse Tyson tweeted this...

    It seemed … not quite right. And we can prove it.
  • Gary Cranitch/Queensland Museum

    Antechinus

    The antechinus, for example, is a marsupial that lives in Australia. Its males [have so much sex](http://more-deals.info/2014/05/absurd-creature-of-the-week-this-marsupial-has-marathon-sex-until-it-goes-blind-and-drops-dead/) that they bleed internally and go blind and their hair falls out and they die. Photo: Gary Cranitch/Queensland Museum
  • Kelly Shimoda

    Cats

    House cats—cute, cuddly, sometimes grumpy—have [barbed penises](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.1091570111/abstract) that scrape up the ladies’ insides something fierce. Yup: penile spines. Photo: Kelly Shimoda
  • Klaas van Haeringen/ Buiten-beeld/Getty Images

    Praying Mantis

    Female [praying mantises](http://more-deals.info/2015/01/animal-cannibalism/) (and a lot of female spiders) eat the males after mating. Listen, a lot of people get the munchies after sex. Photo: Klaas van Haeringen/Buiten-beeld/Getty Images
  • Claude Robidoux/Getty Images

    Ducks

    Female duck vaginas [corkscrew in the opposite direction](http://more-deals.info/2009/12/muscovy-duck-sex/) of male ducks’ penises. This is apparently evolution's way of keeping the males out, because male ducks are assholes. Photo: Claude Robidoux/Getty Images
  • David Shale

    Anglerfish

    [Anglerfish males](http://more-deals.info/2013/11/absurd-creature-of-the-week-anglerfish/) fuse their faces to females’ bodies and they live the rest of their lives like that, stuck together while they release sperm and eggs at the same time. Romantic? Perhaps. Painful? Hard to tell. Comfortable? No. We're going with no. Photo: David Shale/NOAA
  • Kamil Bialous

    Bed bugs

    Bed bugs are [traumatic inseminators](http://more-deals.info/2015/02/50-shades-wrong-disturbing-insect-sex/). Males pierce the females' abdomens with their sharp penises and inseminate them. Photo: Kamil Bialous
  • Clayton Cubitt

    People

    Everything's not always awesome down there, you guys. Human sex can be painful, for both parties, and it's a treatable disorder called dyspareunia. Yet somehow, we're still here. Photo: Clayton Cubitt

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