Comments on: Holy fellatio, Batman! Fruit bats use oral sex to prolong actual sex

By: » Holy fellatio, Batman! Fruit bats use oral sex to prolong actual sex

» Holy fellatio, Batman! Fruit bats use oral sex to prolong actual sex — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 13:53:26 +0000

[...] NSFW – short-nosed fruit bats having sex. I will have you know that the music choice came with the video and has nothing to do with me. Oral sex is rare in other animals. Bonobos do it (but really, what don’t they do?) but it’s more of a form of play among young males, and there’s one anecdotal instance of an orang-utan doing the same. Some animals, such as ring-tailed lemurs, lick each other’s genitals to judge whether they’re ready for mating, but there’s no evidence that they do so as an actual part of sex. As for other bats, it’s entirely possible that they too engage in oral sex. However, given their inaccessible roosts and nocturnal habits, we’re largely in their dark about their sex lives. Nonetheless, Tan suggests a few possible reasons for the short-nosed fruit bat’s penchant for fellatio, aside from the anthropocentric conclusion of ‘pleasure-giving’. Bat penises contain erectile tissue much like our own. It gets stiffer if it’s stimulated, so females could use oral sex to prolong their encounters with males, by maintain their erections or lubricating it for easier entry. While many of us might nod sagely at the need for longer sex, Tan suggests that for the bats, it could mean easier transport of sperm to the oviduct, or more secretions from the female that are conducive to fertilisation. It could also be a way of hogging a mate, keeping him away from rival females. Alternatively, the antiseptic properties of saliva might help to strip the male’s penis of bacteria or fungi, and prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. The fact that males lick their own penises after sex supports this idea. And finally, oral sex might help females to pick up chemical traces on her mate that might suggest if he’s a suitable mate. Obviously, they’d already be having sex, but female mammals often exert choice over their sexual partners after the fact, rejecting sperm from inferior males, or encouraging congress with superior ones to displace it. All of these explanations are just hypotheses for the moment, but they could all be tested in the future. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2009/10/27/holy-fellatio-batman-fruit-bats-use-or... [...]

By: Andreas Kyriacou

Andreas Kyriacou — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:42:08 +0000

At last we have a partial answer to Thomas Nagel’s old question «what’s it like to be a bat?».

By: David Dobbs

David Dobbs — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:48:41 +0000

I just read this article for the article.

By: Johan

Johan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:47:18 +0000

Min Tan of China’s Guangdong Entomological Institute (who are either branching out, or are confused about entomology).

//JJ

By: Marc Abian

Marc Abian — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:52:21 +0000

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhh

By: Bjørn Østman

Bjørn Østman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:47:49 +0000

@1: Tan is falling into the fallacy that animals have sex for the purpose of procreation. Or of writing as if. Those bats are having sex because they’re horny, and the fellatio is somehow making their sex more satisfying. That might or might not enhance reproduction. But that is not on the little bats’ minds when they’re busy getting it on.
In fact, this is not a bad hypothesis. It can be applied to all forms of sex (e.g. homosexual behavior): Humans and other animals don’t have an instinct to procreate, but an instinct to have sex. This is not the same thing, but it clearly works quite well anyway. Instinct tells males to ejaculate because that is the way to impregnate. That it doesn’t always impregnate only means that it’s not a perfect instinct. Masturbation and other sexual behavior that leaves sperm far from the egg can be explained this way.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:44:15 +0000

Join us in promoting this paper for the Ig Nobel 2010 Prize in Biology! http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=171824655811&ref=nf

By: piratebrido

piratebrido — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:28:12 +0000

“Fruit bat sex goes like this: the female approaches and sniffs the male, and both partners start to lick one another. The male makes approaches with his thumbs (like the Fonz) and mounts the female (like the Fonz). Sex itself is the typical rhythmic thrusting that we’re used to, and afterwards, the male licks his own penis for several seconds.”
If only, eh lads!
Lads..?

By: brooks

brooks — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:19:47 +0000

frog:

Are you nuts? That’s not anthropocentric — every other explanation is, instead. The bats aren’t making direct computations of relative reproductive success — they’re “feeling good”, and very often “feeling good” is made better by making someone else “feel good” (not assuming that the bats can actually model their partners mind like that).

you’re missing the point– an anthropocentric consideration of ‘pleasure-giving’ means modeling one’s partners mind to figure out what makes them feel good, and that’s exactly what ed is saying they’re not doing.
MariaA:

Um, ever heard of bonobos? Our close relatives? yeah, those.

ever heard of RTFA? fifth paragraph? yeah, that one. jeez.

By: Kapitano

Kapitano — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:18:28 +0000

1) If female fruitbats give oral sex because they like it – in the same way that humans do – you’d expect to see some lady fruitbats doing it a lot, some not at all, and others gaining a taste for it over time. Is this what we see?
2) If fruitbat sex is partly recreational, you’d expect to sometimes see homosexual sex among fruitbats – and indeed group sex. Is this what we see?
3) We’d also see sex that is purely oral – all tongue, no penetration. Do we see this?
I don’t know the answers – I’m just asking.