Dolphins derive pleasure from ‘very complicated vaginas’, says new research

Dolphins are highly sexual animals. They are known to mate in both a heterosexual and homosexual capacity with dolphins of other species - and even masturbate.

Up until now, scientists have been aware that dolphins possess clitorises (much like all female mammals), but they weren’t sure whether they experienced pleasure.

Research now confirms that the animals do experience pleasure when having sex, due to their “large” clitorises.

Patricia Brennan from Mount Holyoke College in the US led the latest research, published in the Current Biology journal, and found that the dolphin clitoris is indeed functional.

“The clitoris of dolphins has well-developed erectile spaces, is highly sensitive to tactile stimulation, and is likely functional,” the study notes.

Brennan studied specimens from bottlenose dolphins who died from natural causes, such as strandings, and discovered that erectile tissue under the clitoral body forms an ‘S’ shape. 

This bend would imply that the tissue extends upon arousal, much like it does in humans - stimulating pleasure.

“Dolphins have very complicated vaginas, which contain many folds. The hypothesis was that these folds were there to exclude salt water during copulation, because it is supposed to be lethal to mammalian sperm. But nobody had actually ever really studied these folds or tried to test the idea,” Brennan told the New Scientist in a recent interview.

“When we dissected the vaginas, I would look at these clitorises and be just amazed. I was like: “Oh my gosh, these are pretty big, well-developed clitorises,” she added.

The dolphin clitoris is located at the vaginal opening. It has a hood, a glans (the outside bit), a clitoral body and crura (arms that branch off) and the hood is wrinkled, much