Spanking the Monkey

Charming the Snake.  Choking the Chicken.  Freeing Willy.  The amount of slang for masturbation with animal references should be seriously disconcerting.  Except that a wide-range of animals including dogs, cats, horses, all apes, lions, bears... and the list goes on...  have been found to Jack off.  Included on the list are elephants, donkeys and walruses that manage to flog the bishop with their fins.  Even birds have been shown to rub their cloaca against pretty much anything.

This phenomenon isn't restricted to males either - female organgutans were observed exhibiting inspiring creativity by fashioning home-made dildos from lianas.  Female horses during breeding season will rub up against fence posts, barn doors and seemingly anything made of wood.

Discovering that a species can milk the moose is fun and entertaining and often awe-inspiring.  You have to respect a macaque for committing 1-6% of its daily metabolism to producing ejaculate and the ability for 'self-directed oral sex' in a variety of mammals.  But the bigger question is why?  If masturbation is so widespread among all animals then it must provide an evolutionary advantage.

A new study  has found ground squirrels can be added to the list of those that shake hands with the devil.  Previous explanations to this blatant waste of sperm in and around a females oestrus period were that masturbation provided a way to display fertility to potential mates or as a deterrant to rivals. 

Read the rest on Science in Seconds. Also see:

The Scientific Case for Masturbation
Why O’Donnell gets it wrong: being ‘master of your domain’ does not help procreation.

Since Christine “I’m Not a Witch” O’Donnell is campaigning for the U.S. Senate and not the directorship of the Kinsey Institute, maybe we should give her a pass when it comes to her views on sex and, specifically, masturbation. But that would be a mistake: the stakes are simply too high, going all the way up the very survival of our species. For while O’Donnell crusaded against masturbation in the mid-1990s, denouncing it as “toying” with the organs of procreation and generally undermining baby making, the facts are to the contrary. Evidence from elephants to rodents to humans shows that masturbating is—counterintuitively—an excellent way to make healthy babies, and lots of them. No one who believes in the “family” part of family values can let her claims stand.

Read the rest on Newsweek.