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Snakes have a clitoris: scientists overcome ‘a massive taboo around female genitalia’ | Snakes

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Female snakes have clitorises, scientists have detailed for the first time in a study of the animal’s sex organs.

The scientists say previous research had mistaken the organs as scent glands or underdeveloped versions of penises, in a study that criticised the comparatively limited research into female sex organs.

In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the researchers found that snakes have two individual clitorises – hemiclitores – separated by tissue and hidden by skin on the underside of the tail.

“Female genitalia are conspicuously overlooked in comparison to their male counterparts, limiting our understanding of sexual reproduction across vertebrate lineages,” the study’s authors wrote.

Male snakes and lizards are known to have hemipenes – a pair of penises which are everted outside the body during reproduction. In many species, hemipenes are covered in spines or hooks.

The study’s lead author and a PhD student at the University of Adelaide, Megan Folwell, said “a massive taboo around female genitalia” was a potential factor in why snake clitorises had not been described earlier. “I think it’s a combination of not knowing what to look for and not wanting to,” she said.

A dissection showing the hemiclitores of a death adder. Photograph: La Trobe University

“Trying to find it is not always the easiest thing – some are extremely tiny,” Folwell said. She first dissected the clitorises in a death adder, in which the organ forms a triangle shape “like a heart”.

“I was fortunate that the death adder had a reasonably prominent hemiclitores,” Folwell said.

The study suggests that the sex organs “have functional significance in mating” in snakes. Though more research into snake behaviour is needed, Folwell said the team theorised the hemiclitores “could provide some sort of stimulation signalling for vaginal relaxation and lubrication, which would aid the female in copulation potentially prevent damage from those big hemipene hooks and spines during mating”.

“It could also be signalling to the ovaries to ovulate and to the oviduct to potentially prepare for sperm storage,” she added.

The researchers went on to dissect 10 snakes of nine species, including the carpet python, puff adder and Mexican moccasin.

“Some of the clitorises are quite muscular and large – in say vipers – but then they’re really thin, stretched out and small in some other snakes,” said Dr Jenna Crowe-Riddell, study co-author and postdoctoral researcher in neuroecology at La Trobe University. Sizes ranged from less than a millimetre to seven millimetres.

The study found the hemiclitores are comprised of erectile tissue that likely swell with blood, as well as nerve bundles which “may be indicative of tactile sensitivity, similar to the mammalian clitoris”.

“Now that we know that this is here, we know what it looks like, we know there’s erectile tissue with nerves – we can’t help but think: why wouldn’t this be for pleasure?” Crowe-Riddel said. “I think it’s worth opening up those questions for snakes.”

The study comes after a research abstract presented in the United States earlier this year said that the human clitoris has between 9,850-1,100 nerve fibres – about 20% more than the previously widely cited number of 8,000, which reportedly came from research carried out on cows.

– with AFP

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Health

We May Finally Know How Many Nerve Endings Are in The Human Clitoris : ScienceAlert

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The human clitoris is a scientific iceberg, both physically and figuratively.

In the past, research on our species’ clitoris has been superficial at best, and even the tiny bit that we think we know now is not always right.

The clitoris is often said to house 8,000 nerve endings – ‘double’ that of the penis – but new findings, presented at a scientific meeting in October, suggest that’s a serious underestimation of both sex organs.

The study is not yet peer-reviewed, but at least the results are on track to be properly scrutinized.

The numbers most often cited for the innervation of the glans penis and glans clitoris derive from old studies on – wait for it – cows; the results were simply co-opted for human anatomy.

And so those numbers have persisted for decades. Blair Peters, a plastic surgeon at Oregon Health and Science University’s School of Medicine, thinks it’s about time scientists finally found the correct number.

Peters specializes in gender-affirming care, and his work depends on a deep understanding of human sex organs. To conduct further research, Peters obtained clitoral nerve tissue from seven transmasculine volunteers undergoing gender-affirming genital surgery in his practice.

Under a microscope, Peters and his colleagues counted an average of 5,140 nerve fibers in the dorsal clitoral nerve, and the clitoris has two of these.

Taking into account the full range of samples studied, the total number of nerve endings innervating the entire wishbone-shaped organ ranges from 9,852 to 11,086 fibers.

Peters’s study is the first to report the number of nerve fibers in the human dorsal clitoral nerve and approximate the number of nerve fibers innervating the human clitoris.

“It’s startling to think about more than 10,000 nerve fibers being concentrated in something as small as clitoris,” says Peters. “It’s particularly surprising when you compare the clitoris to other, larger structures of the human body. “

The median nerve, which runs through the hand, is known for having high nerve fiber density, explains Peters. It has about 18,000 nerve fibers, but it’s also a whole lot bigger than a roughly 10-centimeter-long (4 inches) pleasure organ.

So how’s that innervation compare to the head of a male penis? Peters plans on finding out.

While it’s often said that the clitoris is twice as sensitive as a penis, there’s more nuance to the numbers than that. Both sex organs have the same embryological origin, which means they probably contain roughly similar numbers of total nerve endings.

What is most likely different is how densely concentrated these nerve endings are in certain spots.

Initial studies suggest, for instance, that the tip of the clitoris has greater variability in nerve density than the glans of the penis. In simple terms, that probably means some parts of the clitoris are extra sensitive.

Peters hopes that a better understanding of how sex organs are innervated can ultimately help surgeons with successful reconstructions of the clitoris and penis, not only for gender-affirming purposes but also for repairing instances of genital mutilation.

“There’s something profound about the fact that gender-affirming care becoming more commonplace also benefits other areas of health care,” Peters says.

“A rising tide lifts all boats. Oppressing or limiting transgender health care will harm everyone.”

Peters presented the findings at a joint scientific meeting of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America and the International Society for Sexual Medicine.

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Health

This woman is now a ‘clitoris advocate’ after a harrowing, botched vagina surgery left her suicidal

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At just 18-years-old, Jessica Pin believed she had an abnormal vagina.

Despite having labiaplasty surgery performed by a respected obstetrician-gynecologist, it went wrong, leaving her with severed nerves.

Because of this, Jessica has no sensation down below, as the dorsal nerves of her clitoris were damaged.

Jessica, who lives in San Francisco said that her whole labia minora was removed – and that the surgeon also reduced the size of her clitoral hood – which she says was performed without her consent.

Labiaplasty is a surgery which aims to reduce the size of the labia minora – the flaps of skin on either side of the opening of the vagina.

The procedure is also known as a “designer vagina” and should not be done on girls younger than 18.

While it’s completely normal to have skin folds at the opening of the vagina, some women opt for it because they don’t like the look of their labia.

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the average cost for the procedure in the US, where Jessica had hers, is around $3,053, this is excluding anesthesia, operating room facilities or other related expenses.

Now after suffering severe mental health issues following her operation, Jessica is urging women to only go under the knife if it’s for medical reasons.

This could be because the excess labia twists and turns and causes irritation.

“I was in denial for years, thinking [the loss of feeling] was fixable, or there was some way around it.”

“Then I was suicidal for years. Trying to come to terms with it, it has been very difficult”, she told news.com.au.

Mental health problems are a serious issue and can cause people to consider taking their own life, as things can often seem too much.

Now, Jessica believes her operation was botched due to a lack of knowledge in the medical profession surrounding the clitoris.

When complaining about her lack of sensation, Jessica said she wasn’t believed and that doctors told her to “get over it”.

“The gaslighting made it much worse. For a long time, I was told it was all in my head.”

“Then I was told I was ‘making mountains out of molehills’ and asked why I was so obsessed with sex. I was told to just get over it. I was told that I was ‘normal’. I was told it was my fault”, she added.

Jessica said that surgeons underplay the risks linked to the procedure, which can include reduced sensitivity of the genitals, scarring tissue and infection.

Jessica now works as an advocate for women’s health, and has had pieces published about clitoral anatomy in medical journals.
Instagram/@jessica_ann_pin

As with any type of operation there is also the risk of a blood clot in the vein and an allergic reaction to the anesthetic.

Since her experience, Jessica has published a complete anatomy of the clitoris in medical literature.

She first described her ordeal on Reddit, where she also asked other women with similar studies to come forward.

She also had a study published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal.

This details how dorsal nerves in the clitoris are larger than once thought and that knowledge of these nerves should be highlighted before surgery is performed near the clitoris.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced here with permission.

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Science

Study: Female dolphins have a working clitoris, so they probably enjoy sex

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Enlarge / Sure, they look like they’re just taking a friendly swim, but these two dolphins are actually aroused. A recent study found that female bottlenose dolphins have large erectile bodies that fill up with blood, large nerves with nerve bundles that end right under the skin, thinner skin on the clitoris body, and genital corpuscles known to be involved in the pleasure response.

Dara Orbach

Female dolphins are known to be highly social and engage in all sorts of sexual behavior. In addition to mating with male dolphins, female bottlenose dolphins are, for instance, known to masturbate and also rub each other’s clitoris with snouts, flippers, and flukes, suggesting the acts are pleasurable for them. According to a recent paper published in the journal Current Biology, there is now anatomical evidence that the dolphin clitoris is fully functional, remarkably similar in many ways to the clitoris in human females.

It’s not just dolphins that engage in what Canadian biologist and linguist Bruce Bagemihl has dubbed “biological exuberance.” Same-sex pairings have been recorded in some 450 different species, including flamingoes, bison, warthogs, beetles, and guppies. For instance, female koalas sometimes mount other females, while male Amazon river dolphins have been known to penetrate each other’s blowholes. The observation of female-female pairs among Laysan albatrosses made national headlines, prompting comedian Stephen Colbert to warn satirically that “albatresbians” were threatening American family values with their “Sappho-avian agenda.” Female hedgehogs may hump one another or perform cunnilingus, while 60 percent of all sexual activity among bonobos takes place between two or more females.

Despite this abundance of behavioral evidence, there have been very few academic studies of the clitoris and female sexual pleasure in nature, according to Patricia Brennan, a marine biologist at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and a co-author of the new study. “This has left us with an incomplete picture of the true nature of sexual behaviors,” she said. “Studying and understanding sexual behaviors in nature is a fundamental part of understanding the animal experience and may even have important medical applications in the future.” It can also yield insights into the evolution of sexual behaviors.

A number of factors contribute to that neglect in the academic literature, said Brennan. “In general, we haven’t studied sexuality, period, as much as we should, because evolutionarily speaking, it’s an absolutely critical process,” she told Ars. “I think it makes some people uncomfortable.” As for why male sexuality has been studied more frequently than female sexuality (in both humans and animals), that’s partly due to inherent biases—until quite recently, the vast majority of scientists were men. Another reason: females are just harder to study in that regard.

“A male penis is just sticking out there,” Brennan said. “Female genitalia are inside, so it’s trickier, and you have to be more creative about coming up with methods to study females.”

That’s the focus of Brennan’s laboratory, specifically studying the evolution of the vagina in dolphins and other animals. Brennan started out working with dolphins as an undergraduate but switched to studying birds (especially ducks) while she worked on her Ph.D. Male ducks are famous for their spectacularly long corkscrew penises, “but nobody had thought to look at the vagina of a duck to see how it would interact with those weird penises,” she said.

Enlarge / The erectile tissue of the dolphin clitoris is very similar to that found in a male dolphin’s penis, and there is evidence that it becomes similarly engorged with blood during arousal.

P.L.R. Brennan et al., 2022

Brennan did think to look. She found that female ducks have corresponding corkscrew vaginas that spiral in the opposite direction of the male’s penis. “Female ducks are subjected to forced copulations by unwanted males and usually they cannot escape,” Brennan told LiveScience in 2009. “The genital morphology allows them to regain control of reproduction by making it difficult for these unwanted males to achieve fertilization.”

Since then, she’s studied the vaginas of sharks, alpacas, turtles, crocodiles, and snakes, before turning her attention back to dolphins. “Every time we looked at the vaginas, it was like this giant clitoris staring us in the face,” said Brennan. “Just from knowing the behavior of female dolphins, we had a pretty good idea that they were probably enjoying sex. They’re having heterosexual sex, homosexual sex, and they’re masturbating. That suggests this feels good to them.”

So Brennan decided to take a closer look at excised dolphin clitorises with micro-CT scanning. If the morphology of the dolphin clitoris had shared features with a human clitoris, that would suggest functionality that may provide pleasure during these sexual encounters. The 11 dolphin clitorises used in the study came from animals that had died naturally, such as in strandings.

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Science

Researchers Discover Dolphin Females Have Working Clitoris – “Surprisingly Similar” to the Shape in Humans

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Dolphins in action. Credit: Dara Orbach

Like humans, female dolphins have a functional clitoris, according to a study appearing today (January 10, 2022) in the journal Current Biology. The findings are based on the discovery that the clitoris-like structure positioned in the vaginal entrance of bottlenose dolphins has lots of sensory nerves and erectile bodies.

“The dolphin clitoris has many features to suggest that it functions to provide pleasure to females,” says first author Patricia Brennan, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.

Scientists have known that dolphins are highly social. They have sex throughout the year as a way of forging and maintaining social bonds. It had been noted also that dolphin females have a clitoris in the vagina in a spot that would make stimulation during copulation likely. There’ve also been reports of females rubbing each other’s clitorises with their snouts, flippers, and flukes.

This photograph depicts dolphin arousal. Credit: Dara Orbach

In the new study, Brennan and colleagues decided to take a closer look at the dolphin clitoris. They looked carefully at clitorises from 11 females that had died naturally. They examined them for the presence, shape, and configuration of erectile bodies. They also looked at how nerve fibers ran through the tissues. What they saw supports the notion of a working clitoris in dolphins.

“Just like the human clitoris, the dolphin clitoris has large areas of erectile tissue that fill up with blood,” Brennan says.

The erectile tissue shape changes as animals become adults, she added, suggesting that it acquires a functional role. The studies further show that the clitoris body has large nerves and many free nerve endings right underneath the skin, which is much thinner there than in the adjacent skin. They also found genital corpuscles much like those previously described in the human clitoris and penis tip, which are known to be involved in the pleasure response.

This image depicts the big nerves in the dolphin clitoris. Credit: Patricia Brennan

Overall, Brennan says that the erectile bodies in dolphins are “surprisingly similar” to the shape of the erectile bodies in humans.

“Since the entire pelvis of dolphins is so different to humans, it was surprising to see how similar the shapes were,” she says. “Also, the size of the nerves in the clitoris body was very surprising. Some were larger than half a millimeter in diameter.”

Brennan said they got curious about the dolphin clitoris while studying the evolution of vaginas in dolphins.

“Every time we dissected a vagina, we would see this very large clitoris, and we were curious whether anyone had examined it in detail to see if it worked like a human clitoris,” she says. “We knew that dolphins have sex not just to reproduce, but also to solidify social bonds, so it seemed likely that the clitoris could be functional.”

The researchers note that there’s been little study of the clitoris and female sexual pleasure in nature. In fact, even the human clitoris wasn’t fully described until the 1990s.

“This neglect in the study of female sexuality has left us with an incomplete picture of the true nature of sexual behaviors,” Brennan says. “Studying and understanding sexual behaviors in nature is a fundamental part of understanding the animal experience and may even have important medical applications in the future.”

Her team will continue to examine the clitoris and genitalia of dolphins and many other vertebrates to help fill in these gaps.

Reference: “Evidence of a functional clitoris in dolphins” by Patricia L.R. Brennan, Jonathan R. Cowart and Dara N. Orbach, 10 January 2022, Current Biology.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.11.020



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Science

The Dolphin Clitoris Is Full of Surprises, Scientists Discover

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The bottlenose dolphin (Tersiops truncatus) appears to have a very large and well-developed clitoris, potentially better placed for coital pleasure than the clitoris of humans, according to new research.

 

The visible tip of the human clitoris is but the size of a pea and located slightly north of the vagina and urethra (although much of the structure remains hidden in the pelvis or under a ‘hood’ of skin).

The head of the dolphin clitoris, on the other hand, is slightly larger and located right near the vagina entrance. What’s more, the whole organ has an ‘S’-shaped bend in it, which suggests it can stick out even further when erect.

During copulation, it would be almost impossible for a dolphin penis to avoid, experts say.

“The dolphin clitoris has many features to suggest that it functions to provide pleasure to females,” says biologist Patricia Brennan from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.

“We knew that dolphins have sex not just to reproduce, but also to solidify social bonds, so it seemed likely that the clitoris could be functional.”

Computer reconstruction of the dolphin clitoris. (Dara Orbach/Mount Holyoke College)

Today, we still know very little about the human clitoris and even less about its counterpart in other species. All female mammals are known to have a clitoris-like structure, but we still aren’t sure how these organs function or if they give animals pleasure.

Like humans, female dolphins are known to copulate all year round, but only sometimes are they ovulating. This suggests the species mates for more than just reproduction.

 

In the wild, for instance, bottlenose dolphins have been observed partaking in group orgies, where male and females alike use their snouts, flippers, and flukes to rub the protruding clitorises and penises of their peers.

Direct stimulation of the clitoris has also been observed in sexual interactions between only females. 

Unfortunately, we can’t scan a dolphin’s brain during all this hanky panky to see if these creatures really are having fun, so researchers have turned to the clitoris itself for answers.

When scanning the sexual organs of 11 naturally deceased female dolphins, the team found an abundance of erectile tissue, blood vessels, and nerve endings in the clitoris.

Similar to the human clitoris, the glans of the dolphin clitoris is also enclosed in a hood. In dolphin adulthood, this hood becomes wrinkled, possibly allowing the tip of the organ, which includes erectile tissue, to swell with blood when aroused.

Arteries in the clitoris were also found to closely trace clitoral nerves, which is an indication of orgasm function in humans.

“Since the entire pelvis of dolphins is so different to humans, it was surprising to see how similar the shapes were,” says Brennan.

 

“Also, the size of the nerves in the clitoris body was very surprising. Some were larger than half a millimeter in diameter.”

Given that the penis and the clitoris develop from the same structures, the findings could help explain why dolphins of all sexes have been seen masturbating on the sandy floor. Some have even been caught using ‘sex toys’, in the form of dead fish or wriggling eels.

Dolphin sex is clearly a kinky affair, and it’s drawn the interest of researchers for years now. Still, most experts have been interested in the dolphin penis, investigating what it looks like, and examining how it fits with the dolphin vagina.

In comparison, the dolphin clitoris has been all but overlooked. And that’s the case for most female mammals.

“Very little is known about female reproductive morphology in most wild vertebrate species,” said researcher Dara Orbach, when announcing the preliminary results of her dolphin dissection in 2019.

“This research provides a comparative framework to explore other functions of sex that may not be unique to humans.”

If sexual pleasure really does hold evolutionary significance, female pleasure among mammals might tell us how. Ignoring this side of sex will give us only half the picture, and as we all know, it takes at least two to tango.

The study was published in Current Biology.

 

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Science

Dolphins Have a Fully Functional Clitoris, Study Finds

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Photo: Joe Raedle/Newsmakers (Getty Images)

Humans and dolphins have even more in common than we might have thought, new research suggests. Biologists say they’ve found clear anatomical evidence that female dolphins have a fully functional clitoris that helps them experience pleasure during sex—just as it does for humans. The findings may one day help scientists trace back the evolutionary origins of the sexual organ and sex in general.

Lead author Patricia Brennan, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, and her team have been studying the evolution of genitals in all sorts of vertebrate animals. More recently, they turned their attention to dolphins, the marine mammals known for their playful and eerily human-like nature at times (in ways good and bad).

“Dolphins have vaginal folds, and we were studying these folds to try to figure out their function and why they are so diverse across species,” Brennan told Gizmodo in an email. “As we dissected all these vaginas, the clitoris was obviously very well developed, so we decided to investigate how much we knew about it.”

Brennan and her team were able to closely look at the clitoral tissue of 11 bottlenose dolphin females that had died of natural causes. Aside from studying the surface physical features of the clitoris, they also examined the presence of nerve endings, muscles, and blood vessels. Everything they found pointed to the same thing: a fully working funmaker.

For one, Brennan noted, the dolphin clitoris is relatively large and filled with plenty of erectile tissue and blood vessels that allow it to engorge quickly. Their clitoris also grows in size as a dolphin matures, much as it does with human puberty, and it’s surrounded by a band of connective tissue that helps it keep its shape, indicating that it’s a valuable body part. And perhaps most importantly, the dolphin clitoris is chock full of nerve endings right underneath relatively thin skin, along with other sensory receptors—both of which, Brennan says, “are likely involved in a pleasure response like they are in humans.”

It’s no secret that some species of dolphins seem to engage in sexual behaviors outside of the strict criteria and timing needed for reproduction (even with humans, according to some eyewitness accounts). It’s widely thought that these dolphins use sex as a social lubricant. During mating, they appear to engage in copious amounts of foreplay before the brief period of penetrative sex. Both male and female dolphins are thought to masturbate, and there have been reports of homosexual behaviors among both sexes, including female dolphins rubbing each others’ clitorises using their snouts or flippers. So it stands to reason that the clitoris would play a key role in all this fun-having. But the authors say theirs is the first anatomical research to clearly demonstrate this purpose.

Dolphins engaging in sexual behavior.
Photo: Dara Orbach

“While it may seem obvious that animals that engage in as much sexual behavior as dolphins do should be deriving pleasure from this behavior, we can now use morphological features of the clitoris to show that they actually do,” said Brennan. Though Brennan and her team have previously discussed this research, their peer-reviewed study has now been published in Current Biology.

Dolphins aren’t the only animal besides humans that appear to enjoy sex and to do it for non-reproductive reasons; many of our primate relatives seem to as well. But the fact that the dolphin clitoris is so similar to the human version, despite dolphins and humans probably being 95 million years apart in the evolutionary family tree, could suggest that the organ’s origins go way, way back. And given the risks that can come with sex, it makes sense that pleasure would evolve as a motivating factor.

Large nerves in a dolphin clitoris
Image: Patricia Brennan

Studying the sex lives of animals is no easy task. But Brennan and her colleagues point out that the nature of female sexuality and the clitoris has long been understudied in animals and in humans. Among other things, this lack of knowledge hampers our knowledge of how sex came to be in the first place.

“Sex is central to evolutionary processes, and our ignorance of female sexuality results in an incomplete understanding of how sex actually works in nature.” Brennan said. “You need two to tango, as the saying goes!”

Brennan’s team plans to keep studying the evolution of genitals in various animals. That list of projects will continue to include dolphins, but also snakes, alpacas, and even alligators.

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