I'll just say what we've alllllll been thinking: animal sex. It happens. A lot. And while it may seem gross to those of us who aren't dogs or pigeons or Gila monsters, science has actually been quite enamored of the various processes of nonhuman boning for a while. And thanks to researchers' unceasing efforts to uncover the subtle mysteries behind animal-on-animal action, we've gotten some experiments which sound dangerously insane on paper, but actually yielded helpful information. Experiments like ...

5. Dead Dolphin Wiener Inflation

When you think of dolphins, you probably think of playful scamps with super high ocean IQs and fart-in-a-wetsuit language skills. They truly are miracles of the sea. Because of their friendly disposition and relatively good PR, if you're the kind of marine mammologist who studies them, you're bound to get a bit of press. It also helps if your method of study involves inflating dolphin penises to see how they fit in dolphin vaginas. That's the kind of headline that sells papers.

As you may be aware, understanding the dynamics of dolphin humping is no easy task, as the creatures almost never rent motel rooms and instead opt for some loony, prudish "sex in the ocean" shit whereby the only things that get to see them are tiny crabs and gulls. But I digress. Studying dolphin boning is hard, and it's also weird, because dolphins have insane collagen-infused flubber wangs and bizarre flapping hedge maze vaginas. How does that shit work? Enter Dana Orbach, so to speak.

Orbach fond a way to harvest parts from dolphins that had died from natural causes -- whole penises and vaginas, specifically. Then, as God shrieked in the background, she would blow that stuff up like NSFW meat balloons and start playing Squish 'n' Smash. A few CT scans later, and she had a fairly accurate model of dolphin sex and the hypothesis that females have the ability to actually redirect a dong internally so as to effectively choose paternity after the fact. Regret sleeping with a guy mid-coitus, you adorable porpoise? No problem! Just send his wang down a dead end street.

So who cares, right? Well, that depends on your opinions and basic humanity. Dolphins and other cetacean life are very much at risk pretty much all the time. Numerous whale species are endangered, and pollution, changing ocean temperatures, and Aquaman are all factors that need to be considered in how we can conserve these species in the wild. And of course, understanding the way they breed is paramount in helping keep any species alive. So is the research important? Not if you're some soulless monster who doesn't care about ocean life. You're not one of those, are you?

4. Sand Flea Sex

Do you know much about sand fleas? If I were asked, I would assume they were like regular fleas who just play Top Gun volleyball with their flea bros on the beach. That'd be normal, right? But hey, there's no time for discussing the finer points of Val Kilmer's career now. We're up to our feet in fleas.

Sand fleas are all over beaches in South America, Africa, and various tropical islands. The little shits wait for you to roll up with your beach gear, and then they hop on your foot and just dig right in like a grave robber looking for Grandma's brooch. They'll suck your blood over several weeks as they bloat to a few times their normal size, all in preparation for the eggs that they're laying right in the buffet that is your foot. Gross. Slightly erotic, but gross.

The problem with sand fleas, aside from the obvious, is that they spread disease. They can cause something called tungiasis, which can lead to painful, deformed feet. And since the only way to get rid of the fleas is to dig them out, you risk some kind of secondary infection, like tetanus or foot holes (which isn't a disease as much as it's just holes in your damn foot). You don't want that shit.

Lucky for sand flea victims, a PhD med student happened to be studying the fleas in Madagascar when she got infected herself. Rather than treat it or just cry a lot and drink herself to sleep like I would, she decided to foster the little monsters. Up to that point, the life cycle of the flea was pretty unclear. Were they pregnant before they latched on, or did they get pregnant by using a person's foot as a brothel and boning deep inside? Just so deep inside that foot of yours. Oooooh.

This particular flea in this particular foot managed to outlast a typical infection and never laid any eggs, leading the researcher to believe it had never been fertilized. This means that they normally do have that dirty foot sex, and this one missed the boat because it was being so closely monitored. Knowing when and how sand fleas get their hump on means knowing more about the disease you're trying to prevent in places where infection rates reach as high as 50 percent, meaning literally half of everyone who may go near sand in some of these countries is getting infected. All because sand fleas like doin' it on us more than anything. That's fucked.

3. Monkey Prostitution

I would say I am a supporter of sex work, insofar as I believe anyone should be free to choose that path if they want to, and I've argued that before. I also support monkeys in literally every form they take -- even the weird ones like the proboscis monkeys, which look like that have ballsacks for noses. So when I heard researchers introduced the concept of money and commerce to capuchin monkeys, and then monkey prostitution started up, I'm not telling tales out of school when I say I was tickled pink. Ballsack pink.

In a joint study conducted by an economist and a psychologist, hilariously small monkeys were given metal coins with holes drilled in them, something no monkey should place any value on in a normal world. But they then taught those monkeys that if they kept the coins, they could trade them for things like Jell-O and grapes and fidget spinners or whatever the fuck monkeys want to buy these days. Once they understood the concept, the monkeys were perfect little capitalists, buying shit they didn't need and stealing coins when they saw the chance, doing what people do when they find out commerce is sitting right on their little monkey faces. And who can blame them. Jell-O, guys.

The most illuminating aspect of the whole experiment was when one monkey, in a moment of tiny, furry brilliance, realized he didn't need any more damn grapes, but could handle a cherry, if you follow me. If you don't, I mean that he wanted to fuck. So he approached a lady monkey, they discussed terms in whatever way monkeys are capable of doing such a thing, and a deal was made. When the deed was done, he quickly made up an excuse about having to get back to work and she went and bought grapes. Nice.

Does monkey prostitution benefit mankind in any way? Shame on you for asking. But this study did shed some light on the nature of loss aversion, showing that it extends beyond human psychology and is innate to our understanding of the value of things like Jell-O and a refreshing afternoon hump. All that from grapes and sweet, sweet monkey ass. And by that, I mean sweet to other monkeys, of course. I mean, obviously. Obviously, guys. Don't go there.

2. Turtle Vibrators

I used to have a turtle when I was a kid, because of course I did, so this is right in my wheelhouse. That and the fact that I've written articles about sex toys more often than I've signed my own name. Anyway, did you know that according to research, the U.S. market for vibrators is worth over $1 billion? And over 52 percent of women admit to using a vibrator in some fashion? And that's just the women, to say nothing of dudes who may be using them. Or turtles, apparently.

Let's go back a few steps before leaping full-on into turtles that use sex toys and ask a question I'm sure we've all wondered at one point in time: How do you tell a boy turtle from a girl turtle? If one refuses to wear pink jumpers and the other won't watch Vin Diesel movies, then you're in a bit of a bind, as turtles keep their junk close to the chest. How close? They keep that shit inside a shell. Some species allow for easy identification based on claw shape or shell patterns or color of their cool ninja masks. Others are a little sneaky, and that means that to study them, you may have to actually open them up surgically to determine what you're dealing with. Imagine someone trying to figure out what's in your pants, so they cut them off you. Well, I mean, you can go to clubs where you don't need to imagine that, but who has the time?

In order to make things easier on the turtles that don't want their pants coming off, one Australian researcher has made his country proud by devising a genius method of getting to the bottom of things: the humble vibrator. Like most men, a male turtle is utterly incapable of not getting a big flubbery one when presented with some serious vibrations below the equator. So if you get super friendly with the little fella and wait ten minutes, you're going to have your answer. Why ten minutes? Because if nothing pops free after that amount of time, it's not a man-turtle, it's a lady turtle. And she probably wants you to stop buzzing her damn shell.

Aside from showing a turtle a good time, this method greatly speeds up the process of identifying turtles, which is of great assistance if you're interested in breeding programs to help preserve critically endangered species. Knowing who's a boy and who's a girl is pretty much step one in the majestic, subtle dance of turtle lovemaking.

1. Fisting As Compared To Animal Sex

I'm no scientist, by any means. I took chemistry in high school, and if you gave me a few minutes, I could use the word "molarity" in a semi-coherent sentence, but that's as far as my lab coat skills go. So I probably don't have the required tools to fully understand the deep meaning of a study called "Similar mechanisms of traumatic rectal injuries in patients who had anal sex with animals to those who were butt-fisted by a human sexual partner."

You go ahead and read that again. That poetry isn't mine, I can't take any credit. That's Damian Jacob Sendler from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Lublin Medical School. He wrote a scholarly paper, in the medical field, that has "butt-fisted" in the title. My heart swells.

There's nothing particularly coy about the title of the paper, as it cuts to the meat of the issue, as it were, and leaves it all on the table. This guy compared the butts of people who had been fisted with the butts of people who'd had sex with animals -- or at least, the medical records of said butts. And hold on to your own butt, because you may be surprised to learn that the butts in question all had similar trauma. That's what happens when you go nutty in the butty. Heh.

So without making you endure the details of the full paper, which I did read and will now carry with me for the rest of my life because I don't know how to un-know things, I'll summarize the key points that make it a winner in the fields of science and butt. Four separate patients were evaluated after having animal sex. All kind of ruined their butts, to varying degree. The butt ruination was pretty similar to the butt ruination you may receive if someone were to put their hand in your butt, as indicated by someone else's study. Knowing this, we can conclude that there are some basic similarities between all butt injuries which result from having a thing in your butt that should not be in there. These are different than the injuries you may receive if this happened non-consensually.

And that, ostensibly, was the point. You can do all kinds of wacky shit to your backdoor, but it's going to be medically different from what happens when someone does it against your will, and that may help doctors more easily diagnose cases of abuse vs. cases of just really weird consensual sex. Yay, science! Yay, butts!

(Original article)